Lesson From a Plant

Dear Friends,

(Written a month or more ago) Thanks for your continual support and prayers. It is a struggle but God keeps giving me strength to persevere. I am thankful for how God takes such good care of me. Today and yesterday, God put it on the heart of several of you to call and I was able to ask for prayer over the phone for strength to keep going. I am processing many things which take a lot of emotional energy. Not a lot of interest in initiating although I am getting many things done here and there. Food doesn’t interest me but I am cooking every day. Have an appetite but hard to be creative or interested in eating although I am but God’s grace. Kind of bored with eating. Probably some of this has to do with the desire to eat only natural meat and dairy products and still having to be a bit careful with acidic foods and spicy. Ate so bland for so long that foods with a lot of flavor are overpowering for me.

I had a very pleasant surprise the other day when I opened the door to my large great room and a beautiful aroma was there. Where was it coming from? Well, it was coming from one of my large plants. There were two stems shooting up with about 10 flowers on each shoot. What a blessing and encouragement. They were a reminder of God’s faithfulness. He surprises us in so many amazing ways when we least expect it. New life coming unexpectedly. I never thought that this tall plant (looking like a tree) would ever produce flowers. It was a sign that God can do what seems to be impossible and knows when we need encouragement and when we need to see a sign from him that He is there. Every time I walk in to the room I am blessed by the beautiful smell and am reminded that even when things look difficult that God is still blessing me with little things (and big things) and that He is with me on this journey and that things will get better day by day.

It reminded me also of a plant I had years ago that had many flowers and then dried up and was as dry as a stick. My roommate teased me because I kept watering this dead plant. Then all of a sudden in a difficult time in my life the plant started having life and produced a least 10 beautiful buds that bloomed into beautiful flowers. It gave me hope that even when circumstances look so bad in our life that afterwards things will get better and there will be new life. We are just in a season of our lives and it will eventually change. It is just difficult to wait. There are many unknowns in my life but I have been in this season before. Afterwards God starts moving and things look fresh and new and I go into a new season of my life.
Lord help me to remember this and not be impatient. Help me to learn all you want me to learn in this season of my life. You have really been faithful and have blessed me during a time that could be very dark. If it wasn’t for You, I would sink. But you are carrying me through and giving me light in the darkness. Thank you Lord! Amen.

I woke up many times during the night a few weeks ago and found myself every time with the following song in my head. “Through It All” (Words and Music by Andrae Crouch). I share those words with you now: Through it All, Through it all, I learned to trust in Jesus, I learned to trust in God (see the blog for all of the words). They are very powerful. This song is on a CD that I listen to very much by Selah called Hiding Place which has had so many encouraging songs to lift my spirits and to help me to persevere with hope when I am feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. Physically I feel great, but emotionally things are tough due to the hormone treatment and also I am slowly feeling the impact of the last year. It still does not seem real. The other day I saw a man I knew at work and I noticed that his wonderful think white hair was almost gone. I knew right away that he was in chemo treatments. I could also tell by his eyes. I was in shock and froze. Emotionally, I was reminded of what I just had been through and it was like looking at my self in a mirror a few months back. That was me. Although for the most part, I did not look that much like a person going through chemo. I guess it was showing me that yes, you have gone through this.

Here are the words to the song: Through It All.

“I’ve had many tears and trials. I’ve had questions for tomorrow. There have been times I didn’t know right from wrong. But in every situation God gave blessed consolation that my trials only come to make me strong. I’ve been a lot of places and seen so many faces there been times I felt so all alone. But in that lonely hour in that priceless lonely hour Jesus let me know I was His own. And though it was,

Through it all, through it all, I learned to trust in Jesus I learned to trust in God. Through it all, through it all, I learned to depend upon His Word.

So, I thank God for the mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys, I thank Him for the storms He has brought me through. If I never had a problem wouldn’t know that He could solve them, wouldn’t know what faith in his Word could do.

Through it all, through it all, I learned to trust in Jesus I learned to trust in God. Through it all, through it all, I learned to depend upon His Word, yes I learned to depend upon His Word, I learned to depend upon His Word.”

Thank you Lord for the Trials

For His Glory,

Ruth