Living Two Years In a Plastic Cup

 

It’s been a long time since I had any real desire to write. I’m not entirely sure I’m up to it even now, but there’s something I’d like to share with y’all today. This may seem like a silly thing to write about, but I’d like to share a little spot of joy in my day everyday. I have been collecting plants ever-so-slowly over the past few years. It began with a little Mother’s Day gift from my middle child – a single plant placed into a clear plastic drinking cup. A gift we were all completely convinced I will kill within a matter of days. One thing I was not born with – a green thumb.

Yet, this plant survived. In that little plastic cup. On a bright, sunny window sill. Where it maybe got watered one week, or the next maybe it didn’t. Some weeks it was completely dry and looked near dead. Other weeks it was thriving and blooming like crazy. And yet, it lived on. Despite my skill...or lack thereof. In spite of my skill might be a better way to say it.

After about 2 years of this pattern, I hadn’t killed it yet. So, we decided it was time to graduate it into it’s own rightful place within our family. This little plant got it’s own pot. A gorgeous turquoise clay pot, the perfect shade of color, located under a bright, sunny window, perched upon a slender black metal plant stand. Upon which, it stretched forth it’s beautiful limbs toward the morning sun each day, bringing forth more delicate pink blooms than we could count.

This little plant has been through a lot. Lack of water, growing out of control, only to be trimmed back to a near stump. One afternoon, a shoe thrown by a careless and angry young child knocked the pot clear off it’s stand, only to crash into a million pieces on the hard floor underneath, the plant losing a few lovely and important branches in the chaos. We carefully selected a new pot, not nearly as beautiful as the first, but much more spacious. We took care to preserve what was left of the poor, tender plant and gave it a new home.

Before long, it was not only growing again, it was thriving! It’s long slender shoots found their way up to the blinds in the window and slowly began to weave themselves into the makeshift lattice. It began to bloom again in the soft morning light for the whole world to see.

Over time, this plant has needed to be cut back once again. It was losing it’s shape and beauty and beginning to drop its blooms onto the window sill, getting caught in the blinds, and I had to reshape it once again. Yet, today, it lives on. This little plant, that no one ever believed would survive, that began with such a simple little home – a clear plastic cup, a cup no one in their right mind thought could house it’s growth for 2 years! And it’s more beautiful than ever, quietly growing many new vines at once, all pointed toward the sun.

I have several plants now, each one with its own unique story. I hope to introduce you to each of these little family members and to tell you the story of each of them over the next several weeks and months. They have brought me such joy and each is filled with little tidbits of wisdom from above, each one the gift of a Father who loves us very much. Life has been kinda hard to put into words this year. I’ve experienced many big gains and losses, many ups and downs...deaths of the old and the very newly born, both losses and gains of friendship and community, new births, first sacraments received. I’ve experienced a major surgery, the long quiet days of looking out at all my beautiful pots, and the friends that just show up at exactly the right time, with whatever I need most in that moment, without even being asked. But I’ve also experienced the beauty of new beginnings, of spacious new pots that allow for much deeper, very needed and renewed growth.

No matter what has happened this year, one thing has remained unchanged. Growth is happening. God is never still, never sitting idle. He has plans far above anything we can conceive of in our limited earthly thinking, plans that cannot be derailed by any force against Him whatsoever. No matter the hardships, no matter the loss, God is good. He is always looking to make us stronger, and to create stories of people that have survived, and even thrived, against all odds. He is always in the business of bringing lasting beauty out of much earthly chaos and mayhem and misunderstanding. How has He blessed your own life with new growth this year? What beauty has He brought into your own life against all odds, against what others said was not possible?

“But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” - 1 Corinthians 2:9 NRSVCE