New Life

Mommy (recently renamed "Mah) says:

I can't keep a plant alive.  I tried repeatedly.  And then I gave up.  Until this year, when Avery became enthralled with flowers.  She wants to pick every flower we see.  And since most of those flowers are a part of business landscaping, we've had to tell her no.  "No," we'd say, "these aren't our flowers to pick."  So, in Avery's 2 year old wisdom, she decided she needed flowers that were all hers to pick.  She began asking to plant flowers.  We decided it could be a special family activity for Easter.

Walking up and down the aisles of the Houston Garden Center, I was filled with such a sense of hope.  A feeling of new beginnings, 2nd and 3rd and 15th chances.  I may have failed 100 times in the past, but this time - this time!  I was going to keep flowers alive!  

Then something else incredible happened.  I was walking Avery down the aisle to pick her pot, and she looked at me in the middle of the fertilizer and soil and said, "Eww, stinky."  I looked down, and in my teacher-mother tone, replied, "Yeah, baby, it is stinky.  But the stinky is what makes the flowers grow so pretty."  And then it hit me.  Suddenly my little teaching moment was over, and I was fighting back tears.   

I have gotten really sentimental since the birth of my kiddos.  I was deeply touched by an old truth, discovered in a new way.

It's not a new concept to see God analogies all over gardening.  But for me, on Good Friday, feeling such moments of hope anew and the promise of life, I saw Jesus so beautifully through the $3 zinnias we brought home.  That's what Easter is.  It's Jesus, offering His life so that we could have new life, life eternal.  It's the promise that God will take the "stinky" of life and work it for His good.  

The beauty was not lost on me this Easter.  

Click here for pictures of the week .  It was a BIG week, too, complete with 6 egg hunts, 2 carnivals, lady bugs (yes, real ones!), a bunny cake, egg dying, confetti eggs, gigantic bubbles and Easter baskets.

Happy Easter!

The McClinton Clan