Still Growing after 27 Years

For my first post-marriage birthday, my new mother-in-law gifted me with a lovely green planter.  She didn't always do gifts, her style was more random.  No less appreciated, though!


Similar to this, but smaller.  Six different plants, I believe, though their names are unknown to me.  Amazingly, they lived, in spite of the fact that my thumb is not very green.  As they grew, they were separated into individual pots.  Through the years, though, most died off.

A few remain.

The tall plant has grown to reach our eight feet high ceiling at least twice, been cut back, and regrown.  More stalks have been added by replanting a section of stem, which then sprouted from each end.  A suggestion from my mother, not that it would have occurred to me to do this.

The vine skirting this pot has received numerous haircuts through the years, and cuttings have filled many other pots, as well as a daughter vine that grew round three walls of our then approximately twelve feet square kitchen.

And this plant.

More slow growing.  It traveled to various rooms of the house over the years, staying strongly upright when the source of natural light was just above.  Putting it outdoors in summer caused it to become limp and lazy.

Rather like our spiritual lives.  When the source of strength is above, and almost-but-not-quite out of reach, we are strengthened by the act of straining toward the life giving Light.  When life is easy, we relax, become apathetic.

There was the time when a conflict between siblings raged; the reason thereof has long since been forgotten.  It concluded when a substantial junior-high-age posterior landed squarely upon the greenery, bending it sharply eastward.  Amazingly, the stems gradually rebounded, stretching again toward sunlight.

However, this plant was outgrowing every space allotted.  And after twenty-seven years, no amount of feeding and lighting and repotting solved the problem of yellowing, dropping leaves on the underside.  And the "stemmy" look.

So, a pruning was in order.  A drastic one.  

Will it sprout again?  Re-grow?  Hopefully so, larger and bushier than before.  We will wait.

Will our hearts re-grow, after the drastic pruning of two years ago?  Hopefully so, larger and bushier than before.  By the grace of God, we will wait.