Sometimes I felt dead inside. Just dead…

This also looks like certain death, but okay, I’m going to do it: take the plunge and try the drastic approach to overwintering geraniums I saw on this video.

In the past I dug up whole plants, potted them, and kept them in the basement, watering but a little. It worked—sort of. But planted out, come spring and summer, the geraniums produced but feebly, stood pathetic where I tucked them, obscure.

Now this video lady claims her drastic method makes geraniums more powerful, to bloom rich and full come warm-time. She even calls them “miracles” and says they “resurrect.”

So… Here’s what I’m supposed to do:

Uproot them from their comfortable place of happy growth. Check. Did that.

Knock loose from them what’s hugging close and nourishing rich (their soil).

Shake off whatever can be shaken. (More will die later; then shake that off, too.)

Cut away anything moldy or diseased—even if that means lopping branches, stems, parts of their botanical personhood. (Keep checking; keep lopping.)

Place them upside down in a big empty box.

Close them in, and keep them away from light and warmth and off the floor.

Soon they look dead. Just dead.

What a way to make powerful plants!

Will this work?

God knows. I don’t. And I’m not much with the green thumb, so that makes the whole venture more daring. But the one who knows says this is how power and growth and rich production of beautiful blooms happen.

And…

Here’s the thing:

God did that, all that, with me—and produced blooms I know I never would have had otherwise:

When family alcoholism, and resulting money nightmare, left me utterly overwhelmed and capital-D Depressed…

When the alcoholic spouse left me a single parent holding the empty bag…

When my dear mother died so unexpectedly…

When my pilgrimage toward God just seemed to go in circles…

When even lately, doors kept closing, instead of swinging wide…

Yes, He uprooted me,

knocked loose from me what hugged close and nourished rich,

shook my life—and with that shaking shook much away that I held dear

cut away even parts of what I considered my personhood,

turned my life upside-down,

and closed doors like box lids, shutting off light, holding me in darkness of uncertainty…

till sometimes I felt dead inside. Just dead. 

But always, always, in the past, He (eventually)…

manifested His power in my weakness as never in my “strength,”

gave my life rich blooms beyond what I had ever known,

opened windows to views of heaven I’d missed in my earthbound pell-mell chasing of dreams and remedies.

grew my hope through situations hopeless.

So now I know—I ought to know—What to hope in. Not an outcome, not a fellow frail human. But the God of hope.

The irony: True hope in what’s reliable (God/Jesus Christ) often begins with the shattering of hopes placed elsewhere (Hebrews 12:27 NIV).

 *****

[Linked to A Holy Experience]