My Lily - A Story of Adversity

Exhibit A:



I know there are a hundred adversity analogies out there, and this is just one more. But it was very poignant to me. Last spring before all of our baby drama, we bought a whole bunch of bulbs to plant in our flowerbeds. Lilies are my very favorite, and so I insisted on these "Red Carpet Border Lilies" for the side of the house. I was very excited when they started to sprout and I love watching them get bigger. Early on in the sprouting process one of the lilies got broken. The boys think that our front porch is great for running along and then jumping off the end of. During one of these such occasions, one of my lily sprouts got jumped on and smashed flat to the ground. I was sad, but such is life, and the other flowers were flourishing. Last weekend they started to bloom. Lo-and-behold, so did my smashed one. I was certain that there was no way we would get a flower off of that plant. All of the other flowers look like the one above. But my little flat, damaged lily continued to grow, and it still bloomed.



It is hard to tell from the photo, but the stem of the flower is laying flat on the ground and the blooms are twisted up coming out of the end. Now to my analogy. I've been really worried lately, our neighborhood has a fairly high number of foreclosures due to the economy, and our property taxes went up (alot) this year. Being that we put a lot of money into our house, circumstances like these put my brain into overdrive causing me to worry about other things too, such as: finances, the future, my kids (the ones I have and the ones I don't), my husband's job, and just life in general. This worrying, which I know is no good, has given me the fear that it is all just going to crash around me, and I won't know how to pick up the pieces. I know that this might be a stretch for some of you. For me though, seeing that flower able to bloom even after it had been jumped on, gave me a real feeling of peace amidst all of my worrying. We all know that we are living in uncertain times, and that the world is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but it is so good to be reminded that no matter what happens to us we can pick up the pieces and still "bloom". I am thankful that I have the knowledge of a Savior who knows my pains and my fears and will be there if I do in fact get "jumped on" to help pick me up, and continue on. So maybe my mind was working in overdrive when it came up with this analogy, but for me anyway, it works. Maybe it can work for someone else too.