Beauty from Ashes

The old dead stem giving birth to a new healthy plant

One of my favourite pastime is watching plants grow. As soon as the weather starts changing from winter to spring, I would go out in the garden and do an inspection. I want to see what’s new. Which plants are coming back from the previous year. Are they coming back the same as they did the previous year or am I getting more than last year. The past two years I started investing in perennials because these are the plants which will come back the following year. It is cost effective. In the past I had invested a lot in annuals but like most things you get the instant pleasure of lovely flowers and when they die they are gone and you have to get more plants the following year.

Perennials on the other hand come back the following year and sometimes I would be wondering if they will actually come back because the pot or bed looks really dead, with no sign of life and then one day I would be out in the garden and notice a little bit of green, the sign of new plant.  I get so much from watching plants grow, it really speaks to me. How many times do we hope and pray for something and we don’t see any result and just when we start to give up hope, like the green shoot, all of a sudden there is a breakthrough. Just as the little plant breaks through the soil, we get an answer or something happens that gives us clarity and hope. The soil is barren after winter which then gives way to beautiful plants with flowers can be likened to beauty from ashes. The same with some of the situations I have faced in life can be compared to the little plant breaking through after winter bringing hope.

Usually the new plant will grow from besides the old stem

As soon as the season starts changing from winter to spring I will start inspecting my pots and raised beds to see which plants are coming back because it is not guaranteed that it will come back just because the label on the plant says so. In most cases it can be a hit or miss. Imagine my excitement when I checked my front garden and discovered this unusual sight. For the past year the lilies will die off towards the end of summer and at the start of spring we will see new plants coming up from the side as you can see in picture 1. The new plants will grow tall and we will support it with a stick when the flowers start to bloom as the flowers get to heavy for the stem. This has been the pattern for the last four years. Until this year when I noticed that the dried-up stem from last year was being pushed off because a new plant was coming through the old one. It was as if the old rotten stem was giving birth to beauty from ashes.

The bible verse in Isaiah 61:3 “to bestow on them a crown of beautyinstead of ashes,” immediately came to my mind. What have you given up on, thinking that it is dead in the water, it will not happen and then circumstances change. It may be a career, a business, a relationship or something else. You may have tried to do all you can to revive it but nothing happened and then you left it, maybe even gave up on it. After giving up on it and sometimes forgetting about it, you suddenly start seeing movements, things start happening, connections, conversations and what you thought was dead seems to have come back to life.

The new plant grows on the side of this old stem with no new plant coming through the old stem

This is how it felt when I saw the new plant being birthed from the old, rotten stem. It was beauty coming out of ashes. Something which I was ready to cut off and put in the bin was showing something beautiful underneath.

I don’t know who needs to hear about this at this particular time but I encourage you not to give up, don’t bin that idea yet. Wait and trust God for directions and soon all will become clear because there are things that are being put in place for all to be revealed and God will not reveal it before everything is in its place. Be patient and know that beauty can come from ashes.

I would love to hear your beauty from ashes stories. Get in touch