Hello Everyone,
My Grandmother’ favorite plant was a daisy bush in her front yard. All the neighbors admired it and she would cut off a shoot, root it and give it to them. It gave her great pleasure to do this. When we moved into our house, she wanted to give us a shoot. We never did take one because we just didn’t seem to have room for it. When she went to heaven and her house was sold, it was in winter. I couldn’t dig up the daisy plant and I felt sorry to leave it behind.
A few years later, when I was writing Lessons I learned from the Lord, the Lord would bring to my mind daisies very often. I didn’t realize it at the time, but on the day Lessons I learned from the Lord was accepted for publishing, God brought to mind a daisy! Several months later, when it was time to pick a book cover, I wondered if I would make the right choice. When the possible covers arrived from the publisher, I knew exactly which one to pick. You guessed it – the one with the daisies!
About three years ago, I decided to buy a daisy plant like the one my Grandmother had. I carefully picked one out and planted it in a spot in my garden. But it didn’t do very well in that spot and last year looked like it would die. At the end of the summer I transplanted it to another spot. This spring it came back healthy and very bushy – lots of leaves!
It got me to thinking that sometimes things have to be moved around and put in a different place to prosper. Many times change is needed so that we can grow. The transplanting may be uncomfortable at first – some of our roots may even break. But the new soil will help them go deeper. We won’t be bound in the pot, but have room to grow.
There are situations in life that may tear us apart. It may seem as if we’ll never grow or be the same again. But although it seems like we’ll never recuperate from the trauma, God will tenderly put us in a place where we’ll be able to expand and grow even more than before.
Birth is trauma for a baby. Yet to stay in the womb is not to grow to full potential. The cord has to be cut, even though it’s scary to be on your own. It’s just a new phase of life. We needed the former to grow into the person we are. We needed the change to grow into the person we are to become. Both are beautiful times of growth.
At the end of our natural life in the flesh, comes another birth – we call it death, but it’s not death except to our old bodies. It’s re-birth into our new eternal life that brings us into our fullness.
There are many times in our lives when we feel “ripped out” of our old pots. But as we get over the change, we find we’ll grow into our new place and what God has for us. It’s not the same, but if we trust in the Lord, He will cause us to blossom again.
Blessings, Evelyn
Dear Evelyn,
We must have had the same grandmother! Mine taught me “He loves me, he loves me not…” and would thread me a daisy chain to wear as a band in my hair.
I like that you call death another birth. It’s a wonderful way of thinking of it because indeed that’s what will be, being born to a new life, an everlasting one in Heaven!
Thanks for the timely message, Evelyn! As we go through a very long “transplanting” season, it was a great encouragement!
Dear Maude
I can remember doing the same thing as a child – it was a simpler time back then. I remember going to a small country church in the summer where we had a little vacation home. Outside the church was a meadow of daisies and often the Sunday School class would go outside in the meadow. You could feel Jesus running along in the field with us. I still can feel the warm sun and the Love of Jesus shining down on us.
Yes, death is really life – abundant life like we have not known. In “Lessons I learned from the Lord,” the theme is that, things in the spirit are opposite things of the flesh. We think of death as the end when it’s actually the beginning.
Blessings,
Evelyn
Dear Marlene,
Thank you for your response. We all at some time or another go through the transplanting times. It’s very hard to be uprooted – whether it be emotionally or physically or even spiritually. But it’s because God wants to place us in the position He wants us. At the time, it doesn’t look like any good can come from it – because we can’t see the end. Thank God He is faithful to His promises and works out all things for our good. In “Lessons I learned from the Lord” I write that when God says for good – there are two meanings. One is that He does it for our best. The other is that he finishes it, once and for all.
God bless you!
Evelyn
Dear Evelyn,
What a wonderful story about your grandmother’s Daisy plant. !!! I can relate to this message very well.
Dear Ardeth,
Thank you for responding. It’s amazing how remembering about things from our childhood brings such joy. I can’t wait for my daisy plant to blossom!
Blessings,
Evelyn