Blooming All Along

In honor of the beginning of summer, I want to talk about flowers. Or, more specifically the limited lifespan of a single bloom.

Some flowers—like crocuses and snow bells—only last a few days. Maybe three or four before their delicate petals wither away. Others—sunflowers and zinnias—seem to flourish for weeks, enduring the late-summer heat without problem.

But most of them, I’d say, bloom for no more than a week…

Tulips can’t hold themselves tall. Peonies bloom around Memorial Day and dry up as soon as the June sun hits. Roses are hit or miss, what with the Japanese beetles constantly munching on them. Gerber daisies are temperamental. Lilacs are gone in the blink of an eye.

And then we have the trees. Oh, those lovely flowering trees that bud for such a short time before their leaves burst forth, replacing the pinks and whites and reds and purples with green, green, green.

All in all, flowers fade rather swiftly. And when you think about it, it seems kinda pointless to devote so much time and energy to blooming, when said blooming ends almost as quickly as it begins. I mean, why spend fifty months out of the year preparing… for a measly two weeks of flourishing? Of reaping the benefit of all your hard work?

And yet, this is what they do. Time after time, year after year. Their Creator’s designed them to be this way, and it serves a greater purpose of pollination and reproduction and growing not only that specific plant, but the species as a whole.

Plus, however short their bold, blooming season may be, aren’t they beautiful? And isn’t a little bit of beauty better than none at all?

Friends, we’re all in different seasons.

Some of us are in winter, feeling dark and buried and hopeless under the cold, hard ground. Others may be in autumn, wondering why God’s allowing us to wither and fade. Or perhaps summer is where you’re at right now, feeling on top of the world and on fire for Jesus. I, for one, am at spring: tentatively branching out after a prolonged spiritual winter, hoping against hope that another frost won’t wreck me.

Regardless, I pray that we find encouragement in the however-fleeting flowers around us; for they know not to worry about their current situation, because they trust that God’s planted them right where they need to be.

So, they keep pressing on. Growing through the dirt and leaves and reaching—always reaching no matter the season—towards the Son. May we do the same.

And I guess, if we’re always reaching for Him, and therefore always growing, we are blooming—producing abundant life, as Merriam Webster puts it—all year around. Blooming all along, whether we realize it or not.