I was thinking about my flowers this morning soon after I woke up when an analogy started playing out in my mind.

Last year I started seeds indoors in late winter to plant outdoors when the weather warmed up. They were Apple Blossom Double Snapdragons, annuals in my part of the country. They grew beautifully and I had more than I had expected so I put some in hanging baskets with other annuals and a couple baskets full of only the beautiful snapdragons, and still had some left to put in the ground.

I enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed anything over the summer, but it was a bad season for me. I was going through a very long-lasting, years long, deep, dark, ugly valley. God led me out of that valley, guiding and directing my every step starting in the fall and by February of this year I was resting on the mountaintop, delivered by His mighty hand.

I had taken the hanging pots down from their hangers and since I had no ambition to do anything like try to overwinter them, I simply set them on the ground next to the house to die off. But not all of them did!

This morning as I sipped my coffee and mused about the garden and flowers and other spring things, I realized that the snapdragons were like us going through various seasons in our lives. I am damaged from the season of trials and battles, just as some of the smaller weaker plants had died off over the winter. But what did not die off recuperated and is already in full bloom again. And as I pondered putting all the surviving snapdragons into one big pot full of pink and white blooms, I realized that they are just like the surviving parts of my life that will all be put back together, stronger after weathering this storm of life.

I was raised in church but always felt like I was missing something. Now the Word of God excites me! My curiosity enhances the pursuance of discernment. I have often felt discouraged, but not totally defeated knowing that in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.