Re-potting things

We had rain on Monday and on Tuesday we had sleet and snow and sun and rain and clouds and wind and dark skies. Yesterday was bright and cheerful and partly cloudy with rain again. Name a weather, and we had it this week!

On Tuesday I brought home a plant that was given to me around Thanksgiving as part of a 3-plant-gift from my mother. I used it to dress up the insurance office for the holidays. The white poinsettia that came with it died - which is good. The most healthy of the three, a lovely vibrant green and yellow plant is sitting on my desk at work, and that left the "somewhere in the middle" ivy plant.

I didn't much care for the ivy. After I selected the healthiest of the three to put on my desk and dumped the dying poinsettia into the trash, I tried giving the somewhat sickly ivy away - but no one was interested in taking it. Hoping someone might change their mind, I left it in the kitchen at work and I watered it once a week, or whenever I remembered to. I watched and waited - hoping I would come in one day and it would be dead so I could just toss it. But the ivy plant struggled through being kept in the dark next to the refrigerator, being given very little water - basically forgotten.

So for these past few months I have been watching the ivy barely survive without care. It got me thinking about how the ivy could really teach me a lesson in symbolism about what happens when I have something in my life that needs a little extra care to bring it from "dying" to "thriving". I might choose to ignore it at first, but - if instead of ignoring it - if I gently pull it from it's old place, shake the roots free, place it into a new home, scatter a little fresh soil and give it cool water, it receives what it needs to grow into something better again.

The lesson is that you can take something in your life that is dying and give it new life if you try hard enough.

E. got a plant from school that needed re-potting and so Tuesday night we had a lesson in re-potting plants. :)



The ivy, only a couple of days into it's new home, is now thriving. Ultimately I was so encouraged by the idea that if I remember to do this with problems or issues in my life, I might have similar success. Something that was barely growing can thrive if I help it along.

I memorized this song in my teen years and I always repeated the lyrics to myself every time I needed a little comfort in the past. Today is a good day to be reminded that we never have to be anything more than who we are...but that with a little extra care, we can become everything we should be.