Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

They spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.

• Job 14:2

But the wicked will perish:
    Though the Lord’s enemies are like the flowers of the field,
    they will be consumed, they will go up in smoke.

• Psalm 37:20

A voice says, “Cry out.”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
    and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.”

• Isaiah 40:6-8

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,
“All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you.

• 1 Peter 1:23-25

We were greeted one afternoon by our youngest member of our Sunday school class knocking on our front door, I think just before Easter.  My wife was taking a nap, so I answered quickly.  This lady and her husband run a greenhouse farm near our home, and she came by with an Easter card, some cookies, some soup, and the pictured hanging basket, which is sitting on the trash can lid next to the refrigerator – but that is part of the story.

I thanked her, but since she reads this blog, I can thank her again for the resurrection plant she gave me at Easter time.  Fitting, hunh?!

My wife and I are not good house keepers.  I have wrecked the storage areas of the house as I was (and hopefully will again) be in the mode of sorting and throwing away.  Odd how the process of downsizing starts with upsizing as you spread things out and sort them.  But my wife just seems to have lost interest in all of it since her multiple illnesses, but I bet if the grandchildren said they were coming to visit, she would find the energy.

I say that to state that we had no place inside the house for a hanging basket of violas that are meant for the outside of the house in the first place.  We were having near freezing weather in the early mornings, so I moved the plant from one spot to another, always in the way of something else, for a few days until the weather was supposed to be rather warm, even at night, for a few days.  I put the flowers outside on the porch, even hanging them from a nail that seemed to be meant for the task.  But then there was one night that was supposed to get down to 39F.  It got a few degrees cooler than that, but I forgot to bring in the flowers and my wife commented that I had killed the plant the next morning.  I brought the flowers inside and placed them on the kitchen trash can lid.  I added a little room temperature water, much warmer than the plant was at the time and by the time the afternoon sun hit the flowers, the plant was fully revived.  It had gone from total wilted to fully robust.

My wife insisted that I move the flowers because she could not put anything into the trash can.  Odd, when she tosses something in the direction of the trash can, she usually misses, and she does not bend over to pick it up.  She leaves that for me.  The plant weighs roughly a pound, no more than two pounds.  I lift the plant with one hand, tip the lid up throw the trash into the can, and then use the hanging basket to close the lid.  Anywhere else and it is in the way of something that we need.

But to have harmony in the home, I move the plant around.  Then there is the secondary issue.  The plant gets great afternoon sunlight from the lid of the trash can and hardly gets any sunlight elsewhere, just room light, which has led to two more totally wilted scenarios followed by watering and moving to the trash can lid for a full resurrection.

Now it is not the watering alone, as I have watered in other spots and not gotten the same results.

So, I have even moved the plant back outside.  The last death and resurrection was when it got no colder than 45F outside.  I am sure if it got to freezing the plant would surely die, but again, back to the trash can lid and it resurrects itself.

Maybe the violas are thinking, ‘We are almost in the trash, so we better perk up!”

Regardless, this Easter gift from a wonderful human being who happens to attend our Sunday school class has kept the resurrection alive for us here roughly a month after Easter.

Now that is truly a wonderful gift.

He is risen!

He is risen, indeed!

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.