Like An Amaryllis - Take 2
God taught me so much about the beauty of creation and life through my first amaryllis experience last winter. And I’ve really been looking forward to what new things God would reveal to me in year two. After its dormant season, I replanted my amaryllis bulb mid-November and waited for new growth to begin. As expected, the leaves sprouted, growing healthy and green and tall. But for reasons I don’t know, this year the blooms never came.
By now it was very late in the season, and I was really disappointed in not having those beautiful blooms of life to look forward to in the cold and dark of winter. It was well after Christmas when I bought another amaryllis kit, the bulb and potting mix all wrapped up inside the ceramic flower pot. I was surprised and further disappointed when I opened the packaging to find that the bulb had already sprouted, the stalk had started to grow, and the flower was trying to open within the confines of the wrapping. I carefully took it out and planted the bulb and its developing flower. In all honesty, it was a sad sight: stalk wrinkled and short instead of straight and tall, its growth stunted, barely holding itself upright, its bloom minimized by lack of room to open. But I watered it and set it in the sunlight. I even talked to it, encouraging and willing it to survive.
Within a few days, the flower started opening more fully while a couple other blooms began to develop. I lifted and stabilized the stalk, allowing nutrients to flow freely through it. New sprouts gained healthy color and began to grow. The red and white petals of the first bloom opened wider with the second and third flowers quickly following suit. Within ten days of purchase, this clearance, once stunted and deformed flower is now standing upright, wrinkles and all. Here she is, proudly displaying the brilliance of summer right in the middle of winter. She shines with colorful beauty exactly as she was created to do. Much like last year’s amaryllis, this one, even with all her imperfections, isn’t merely surviving, she is thriving!
Herein lies our hope: the same God who created this simple amaryllis created you and me. He is the Master Gardener who carefully takes us from the places that have held us back and temporarily stunted our growth. He plants us exactly where He knows we need to be and gives us room to bloom. He doesn’t write us off because of our flaws and wrinkles, but uses us in spite of them. He supports and stabilizes us with His strength. He allows His beauty to shine through our imperfections. To the human eye we look broken, slumped over, and irredeemable. But God sees something worth saving and restoring. He sees someone worth speaking and breathing life into. The frailties and infractions of this fallen world can never thwart the perfect plan of God. His creation will do what He has created it to do. Growth will come despite the dark, potentially crippling circumstances of life. And that growth will display itself differently from flower to flower and person to person. But beauty will rise. If the Creator sees to it that the amaryllis flourishes according to His design, we can be certain that He will also see to it that His beloved ones flourish as He fulfills His purpose in us. We won’t simply survive – we will thrive! And the radiance of God’s glory will continue to shine with the “brilliance of summer right in the middle of winter; somehow surprising the night like a Christmas amaryllis.” (Amaryllis by Christy Nockels)
