I tried a new thing last year.
I kept a poinsettia from
Christmas 2017
until Christmas 2018.
Actually, I’m still keeping it.
This was a special Poinsettia.
It was a gift from a dear friend
of mine.
I went to visit her at the cancer
center in town
where she was getting treatments.
And she brought me the Poinsettia
along with individual gifts for
all our family.
That is who she was.
Always thinking of others.
Even in the middle of fighting
cancer.
Last summer we lost her.
Everyone who knew her misses her.
And when we remember her,
I think we want to bless others
more,
like she did.
This Poinsettia my friend gave,
kept beautifully blooming for
months after Christmas,
but after a while it began dropping
leaves
like all other poinsettias I’ve
ever had.
I didn’t want to just throw it
out.
So I moved it outside, still in
its plastic pot,
where it lived all summer,
watered by last year’s abundant
rains.
Its stems grew to a woody brown
and new leaves sprouted at the
tops.
In November we moved, and the
Poinsettia moved with us.
Now I began to think that maybe I
should try
to get the leaves to turn to red.
I knew there was some trick of
dark and light
that turns the plants from leaf
green to Christmas red.
I found out the plant must spend
12 to 14 hours of every day
in complete blackness for six
weeks.
This sounded like it might be
possible,
so I began stowing the Poinsettia
away in the pantry
early every evening and bringing it
out
every morning to sit in the
windowsill.
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| Screenshot of my phone alarm. |
He began to take on a tinge of
pink in the leaves
as well as his own personality.
He developed a name.
Petunia.
I don’t know exactly why.
But a poinsettia named Petunia definitely
has character.
This was no showy Christmas
Poinsettia.
In fact, most people might not
have
recognized him as a poinsettia at
all.
He had more of a trunk and spouts
of branches
flowering out in bright fireworks
at the end.
Beautiful in his own distinct
way.
Petunia is still growing happily
on our school room windowsill.
I’m planning on moving him
outside again for the summer.
And hopefully next Christmas
we’ll enjoy the show of leaves
turned to red.
“He has made
everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set
eternity in the human heart;
yet no one can fathom
what God has done
from beginning to
end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
