Succulents of Hope

SUCCULENTS OF HOPE

9/18/2020

My Grandkids gave me a beautiful arrangement of succulents for Mother's Day. The pot they came in was too small for all the different succulents', so Jennifer and I separated them into different pots. Let's say I am trying my hand at growing succulents. "Oh, they're so easy to grow!" friends and family said, and I sighed. I have not found succulents easy.
My feeble attempts at re-potting healthy-looking plants were rewarded with the leaves plummeting off the plants within a week of my handling them, even as others just turned yellow and sort of shriveled. I was deeply discouraged: was I over watering them, or under watering them? Were they getting too much sun or too little? I didn't know how to fix it, but I suspected they were failing, and the sallow, slumped leaves seemed to confirm this. I looked at the pile of fallen leaves lying in the potting soil and grieved. I studied the rotting ones still attached and tried to WILL them back into health...only to be discouraged when yet another one fell the following day.
Of course, it was never just about the succulents. Those little plants seemed symbolic of so much going on. I was trying so hard to make distancing work, and while I could "see" this just wasn't us; I wasn't sure how to fix it. Except, I knew I missed my family and wanted to spend time with them. The yucky feeling of this world or under the weather feeling is a lot more complex than getting the wrong ratio of light and water.
But God recently surprised me with hope in the most unexpected places. after weeks of watching leaves drop, and drop, and start to decay and wondering whether my plants were going to make it, I realized I have been looking in the wrong place. My eyes had been focused on the old leaves falling off, but I hadn't looked to the tips of the pant, to see if any new buds were forming. And when I looked, there they were! My efforts at readjusting had not been the failures I'd thought.
Hope sometimes doesn't look like the old thing recovering. Dying leaves don't un-yellow and regreen themselves. Hope, as it turns out, sometimes look like a tiny new thing sprouting. And so, when a mentor showed me Isaiah 43:18-19, God immediately brought the succulents to mind:

Isaiah 43:18-19 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up! Do you not perceive it?"
I was so focused on worrying about what was being lost, and whether it could be salvaged, I was NOT releasing the new thing. But when I started to look for buds, I realized there was tiny new growth all over the place. and earlier this week I clapped my hands with joy and did a happy dance when I noticed yet another surprising new place of growth: tiny green leaves of growth shooting from the edges of the dead leaves that had fallen!
Jesus said the same thing, but I'd forgotten: unless a kernel of wheat (or a succulent leaf!) falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But it dies; it produces many seeds (John 12:24)
What might He be sprouting in me? And in us? What new budding opportunities are there in how God is forming us in our walk with Him? Where are these opportunities for evangelism and neighbors helping neighbors that wasn't there before? What might be some new ways to build a community of togetherness like we never imagined? How might His plans reach children, youth, students, neighbors, and our city be freshly reimagined? How will God keep His promise to build His church in this season?
We are invited to keep our eyes open together: He's the one who brings growth, and He is doing a new thing.