Dormant Seeds

I spent this morning deadheading my marigolds.  It's become a late-fall ritual that I really enjoy...waiting til the blooms die down from the first frost, then clipping them.  Then next spring, I'll prepare the soil and plant my recycled seeds and await the beautiful blooms.  This is fourth year of my replanting, starting with a gift of seeds from our friend Jim's garden.  Some of the plants hybridize themselves, creating slightly different looking plants...just a little different in color and/or form than the "parents."  It's a fun and fascinating and rewarding type of gardening.  And economical, too.  Just a few seeds can cost more than a dollar...I probably will have almost two Kroger bag-fuls by the time I get finished harvesting my seeds!

This experience has me thinking about the process of a rather dead-looking seedpod going dormant for months and months...and then emerging from the cold ground as a plant, ready to grow and bear fruit in the form of gorgeous blooms.  The process involves patience, readiness, water, sunshine, nurture, cultivation...kind of like the process we humans go through in life.  We go through periods of "dormancy" in our own lives...times when we feel rather stagnant...in the doldrums...not too creative nor productive.  Then, God with His grace, gives us a little push...perhaps from a person, maybe from a special scripture verse, maybe a book or a sermon or a life-lesson from a song or a card from a friend.  And then it happens:  growth!  New life!  An awakening...just like magic, just like the marigold seeds, we feel invigorated and alive. 

So, as I clean up my garden for the winter...and pack away the newly harvested seeds, I'll remember my recently learned lesson about dormancy.  It's just part of the process of life...it happens...and it can have a beautiful outcome when the dormant period ends and new life begins again.  I'm thankful for this lesson.  May I apply it to my life...and be used as a catalyst in the lives of others who are going through their own personal dormancy.  "Summer and winter, and seedtime and harvest, sun...moon...and stars in their courses above, join with all nature in manifold witness, to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love."