Today’s topic is a flower. It’s a flower that my grandmother, who was an immigrant of Germany, used to grow in her dry western garden. It was one of the only ones that she could grow without irrigation: Cosmos.
I have tried to grow cosmos here in Michigan, but only succeeded once, when it was very dry. We just have too much humidity here, I guess. But this year, after they finished putting in our new road, they sowed grass seed by the road, and all kinds of things came up with the grass.
One of those unexpected blessings was different colored cosmos. And it grew! But in November, not much is happening with any of the greenery. The cosmos that came up flopped over by the sidewalk, and what didn’t get walked on or visited by a dog was sideways in the grass.
So this week, Tony mowed the lawn; it was the dreaded last mow of the season.
Let me preface this by reminding you all about Tony’s love for herbs. It would suit him completely to never mow, in order to find some new herb that was growing up “volunteer” in our lawn. (And it is truly amazing what God sends, if we just give it time to develop!)
In fact, Tony almost never does the task of mowing. It bothers him to mow the dandelion or the plantain. If he is the one to mow, I will often find that he has left a tall, flowering chicory; and inside that ragged clump of grass he “missed” is a small white flower that grows about 3″ high, and only he knows the name. But since this is November, and it will all freeze in a few days, he gave the grass a “crew cut.”
When Beau and I came home in the dark, there was a pile of something that looked like hay on the porch. Later, when I was done unloading the truck and came into the house, I saw a beautiful flower vase on the dining room table. It was filled with the last remnants of the Cosmos flowers. (The pile on the porch was the rest of the plant.)
Tony had saved the plant instead of mowing it, and Beau had harvested the few remaining flowers and put them into the vase so I could see them.
They looked pretty sad. The flowers were wilted, and those that were still open had speckles of cut grass on them. But it’s the thought that counts, and so I thanked both of our sons for the honor they did to me by saving the flowers I love.
I thought that would be the end of it.
The next morning, I made breakfast and we sat down to eat.
I kept smelling something beautiful, like the faint scent of carnation. As I looked around, my eyes fell on the cosmos flowers in the vase, and I saw that they had recovered!
The color of the petals was bright and the stems were straight (well, Cosmos stems are never really straight, but they had plumped up). The petals had re-hydrated, and the centers continued to develop. They were actually growing!
When I say “growing,” I mean that the wonderful “stars” in the center of the flower were continuing to develop.
When each cosmos flower is new, the center looks like tiny balls clustered together. But these are tiny “florets” or flowers in themselves. As the flower matures, each tiny “ball” opens, and the opening looks like a star.
Emerging from the empty star shape is another star. That new star is on a black stalk that grows longer and longer. While it develops, it looks like a shooting star or a comet.
All these parts are the reproductive parts of the flower. My huge surprise this morning was that I never knew that cosmos flowers had any smell at all. But they most definitely do.
And coming on the end of that surprise was the realization that these dried out, walked on, cut down flowers still had life in them. In fact, with some hydration, they could still grow and reproduce!
Cosmos flowers famously “self-seed.” That is, they produce flowers for many weeks, and over that time, if no one cuts the flowers, they develop seeds and those seeds fall to the ground in large amounts. Next spring, the ground will still be covered with hundreds of seeds, and some will escape the hungry birds, and take root and grow into more beautiful flowers.
Why, at the very edge of winter am I writing all this?
I am looking for signs. I last wrote about how the lilac bloomed “out of season.” Now the cut flowers of the cosmos are still able to recover, grow and reproduce. Cut flowers.
Maybe some of you have read about how God sent me a sign when my mom went in for open heart surgery: The yellow roses I bought her in the hospital broke out into a flurry of new growth, producing new stems along the stalk. This was a sign from God to encourage all of us, an improbable physical sign that new life can come even when things have been cut off.
If God wants something to grow, it will grow! If God wants something to live, it will live. And my mom did live for more that 20 years after her surgery, and her cardiologist told her that her heart was “better than it was before her heart attack.”
These cosmos flowers, saved from the mower’s blade on the eve of a frost, even after being cut off from the roots, regained new life and are ready to reproduce. That encourages me in such a deep way!
The scoffer in the back of my head kicks into gear whenever I start to praise God. It’s a wicked voice, not my own, that whispers: “You are imagining things. There was still enough life left in the stems when it got cut, and the water just made it circulate. The flowers will die, soon enough.”
Yes, wicked voice, not my own. Everything dies.
But God reserves and preserves a remnant. When the flower fades away, the seed remains behind, ready to take root in the spring. (And that’s even better than preserving just the flower, because that seed will produce much more!) Life continues because God wills it to remain. Life continues because God is merciful, because He loves us.
Yesterday we read Psalm 136 together after breakfast, while I enjoyed the faint scent of the restored cosmos flower. It is 26 verses long, and every verse ends with “for His mercy endures forever.”
Give praise to our God, for his mercy endures forever! Don’t forget His marvelous acts, for His mercy endures forever! Remember when He made my mom’s supermarket roses grow in the vase? His mercy endures forever! See how the cosmos flower came back to life and grew in the vase right under my nose? His mercy endures forever!
Death/being cut off/being disappointed is not the end for any of us, my dear friends! Don’t be discouraged–ever! When God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31b)
Let your concerns rest in God’s hands. Give them to Him and don’t take them back! Thank Him for what He has done, and for what He will do, even though the future is a mystery to us. God is all-powerful, He loves us, and He is good. He assures us that He has a plan for us, a plan of peace, to bring us a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11 – 14)
So when I look at the cosmos flower on my table today, I remember that God can save us in the nick of time. He already did. Time is in His hands, and it is never too late. He will restore our life, and He is our hope.
God has plans of peace for us! God is our refuge and strength. His mercy endures forever.
Say it with me, as I quote from King David:
“I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.” (Psalm 91:2)
Look for the signs of encouragement, my dear friends! Remember that God’s love is everlasting, and His mercy endures forever!
Much love to you–we are praying for you!
