Every year before Christmas, I purchase a number of poinsettias and keep one in my office. I try to nurture it as long as it will let me. Typically, poinsettias flower for four to six weeks and are expected to last only two or three months. Last year, my little red poinsettia made it all the way to Easter. This year’s white poinsettia, courtesy of Katie McGhinnis, is going to make it all the way to May — and, Lord willing, beyond. It’s been wonderful to have such a delicate, fragile flower abide with me through nearly half a year of ministry at Yates.
Truth be told, the flower is not quite what it once was. Some of the leaves have dried and fallen. With all its resilience and durability, it seems a bit more fragile. Still, there’s no denying that it has a role and purpose for me every single day it lives on. Maybe in this season of my own life, this little flower is speaking to me differently.
“Teach us to number our days,” Psalm 90:12 sings, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” That Psalm is more than a sober awareness of our mortality. It is also calling us to reckon with the finite brush strokes of our lives painted across the canvas of God’s eternity. Our lives, and every day of them, are filled with significance and purpose, because they are lives granted and given by our loving God. No, my poinsettia will not last forever. Neither will I — not like this. Yet while it does live, it encourages me and reminds me of important lessons for my own days.
Above all, I think it reminds me that even though I can clearly see I am not who I once was — or even who I thought I might be — every day there is breath in my lungs is a day that can be enriched when I live into my God-given role and purpose. When I embrace the many ways my life is put to work in the world by God in Jesus’ name, I can only see limitless potential to experience God, and for others to experience God through me.
The Apostle Paul counseled the Colossians: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Col. 2:6-7) What a timely word for us all. I love that phrase “rooted and built up in Christ.” It makes me think of that resilient little poinsettia that could! May it be so for us.
Grace & Peace,