When I think of flowers, I certainly don’t thing of something powerful.  I think of beauty, color, delicacy, growth.  In the late spring, I go shopping, excited to find beautiful flowers to fill up the pots and boxes on my little balcony.  I love looking at them through my sliding door – that punch of color and texture – and I love sitting at our little table outside among the birds and flowers.  This year however, just like the rest of us, those beautiful flowers have been beat up more in the last month or so than they have in all the years I’ve been growing them.

Since they’ve been planted, they have been blown by 60-70 mph winds, hailed on, drenched in torrential rains and fried in near 100 degree temps, each more than once.  Welcome to Nebraska, right?  As a result, they have ended up in a variety of conditions.  Delicate petals were ripped apart, stems were bent, plants burnt to a crisp.  And yet, in whatever condition they are in, most have continued to grow, not in the way they began, but growing in spite of the obstacles, completely out of their control, hurled their way.

This afternoon was another one of those times.  Just two days ago, I had replaced some of the flowers that had burned away while we were out of town and today I watched the skies turn dark and felt the wind begin to blow and watched as those newly planted  flowers blew backwards.  I was waiting for the wind to just pull those flowers off of the railing, watching through the sliding glass door, but no – they stayed.  After the storm passed I pulled the flowers back up and within a half hour they looked as if nothing had happened.  Doesn’t that make you wonder if we too could bounce back that quickly? Why do some of them bounce back and why do others parish?  What can we learn from them?

It seems as though every day we wake up there is something else, from the serious to the ridiculous.  From Covid to murder hornets, to crazy weather to an unrest we haven’t seen in decades, I’m beginning to feel like those flowers, just beat to death and wondering when it will all be over.  Some are being hit harder than others, some have been hit longer than others and it shows.  On top of those things that are affecting all of us collectively, life still happens to us individually; families are unable to participate in traditional activities, relationships begin and end, people get sick, people die.  Everything is compounded by the fact that we feel powerless to do anything, much like those flowers seem when pounded by the elements.

And yet they bounce back.  Maybe if we’re planted deeply enough in our faith, if we’re fed and watered by someone who cares for us, we too can bounce back from this.   And though we may be bent or scarred, we’ll be stronger for it, still reaching upward towards the Son.