Zinnias are one of my favorite flowers. They are the first flower that I ever grew from seed. My mother and I picked out the packet at the nursery when I was just seven years old and scattered the thorn-like brown seeds into the spring soil. I was mesmerized watching them sprout and grow beautiful flowers from such ugly and inconspicuous seeds. 

I grow them every year in my garden and many times they grow back on their own, reseeding naturally from the previous years’ plants. The flowers fade, curl in upon themselves and fall into the dirt. A year passes without a hint of life, but without fail, in the spring, up from the disintegrated remains of the fallen flowers sprout an entire bunch of new seedlings.  

I love the heirloom variety, and the plants can grow over three feet tall. By this time of year in August, the plants are towering and long past their spring prime.Their age is beginning to show. The long stems are drooping under the weight of the plant. The leaves are yellowing and covered in brown spots, wilting in the summer heat. Entire stalks have fallen to the ground with new stems still bending upwards from the dirt, reaching towards the sun. They are so overgrown, twisted, and mangled that I am tempted to pull them all up in anticipation of some fresh fall flowers in a few weeks. 

And yet, each time I pull on my gardening gloves and reach to uproot them, I am stopped short by the joyful burst of color of these cheerful flowers. Even though the stems and leaves are suffering from the unrelenting burden of our southern summer, the flowers are flawless. The blossoms are full and bright, perfect circles of aligned petals in flashes of pink, orange, and red. Butterflies and hummingbirds flutter about in delight at the playful display. 

If I yank them out now, these plants will never have the chance to enter the final season, slowly retreating back to the soil from which they drew the necessary nutrients for growth. They will lose their ability to deposit the seeds for next years’ dazzling array of blooms. 

Sometimes there is a part of our lives that isn’t growing the way that we had in mind. We survey the crooked stem of expectations, the leaves spotted with disappointment and failure and wonder if it is time to uproot the whole dream and move on. Especially in seasons when we have been sweltering in the oppressive heat, we forget that the purpose of our lives is to reseed. 

The process of reseeding requires each flower to lay down its petals and surrender to the soil, but it first requires the flowers to bloom. Without a vibrant flower of hope and faith in the midst of the glaring sun and pounding rain, there is no fertilization. Without a beauty that draws the bees and butterflies to its fruitful center, the seeds remain unable to reproduce. 

In the same way, I pray that the beauty of our hope in God draw others to the display of His unfailing love in our lives, even when our strength is faltering. Only then can we achieve our true purpose, not to be strong, but to be completely surrendered, so that when our lives eventually fade away, we leave behind a garden littered with fertile seed for another generation to sprout. 

Stay put, fellow plant. Let your slumped and wilted foliage, be the platform to display the beauty of God’s redemption. Allow Him to take your weakness and groaning and use it to plant a seed of hope for others.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”

Romans 8:18-24a