To be brutally honest, I am not much of a horticulturist. So many times, we’ve been on a hike somewhere—doesn’t matter, desert, forest, alpine, meadow—we see a plant or tree and wonder what kind it is.
I’d like to be more adept in the field, but like anything else, it takes study and practice, and I guess there’s only so much time. On a few occasions when my curiosity was piqued, I took the time to look up the plant, glad for the new-found knowledge. But a few weeks later, I saw the same thing and totally forgot what it was.
Anyway, with that as a background, I need to borrow brains when it comes to plants, flowers, etc.
Several years ago, a friend’s yard had some really beautiful flowering plants. Tall, lush green, with brilliant red blossoms on the top. I also noticed my mother-in-law had some of the same.
Mom-in-law is a green thumb with a head full of knowledge of such things, so I picked her brain.
“Canna lilies,” I learned.
Mom explained that they grow from a bulb you plant in the spring, and the bulbs multiply underground producing multiple tall, flowering plants by mid- to late-summer. And best of all, unlike some flowers that you have to dead-head to get more blossoms, they really don’t require any maintenance all season long!
“Ah,” I said, “Sounds like my kind of flowers! These would be great along the side of the driveway!”
There’s only one catch. You can’t leave the bulbs in the ground over the winter—they turn to mush. So, after the first hard frost, all the bulbs have to be dug up and stored someplace dry until spring for re-planting.
No big deal, I thought.
So mom-in-law gave me a small bucket of Canna bulbs that I planted along the driveway the following Spring. And they produced very well! And reproduced very well, too! I couldn’t believe how many new bulbs I had to dig up in the Fall.
After a couple of years, I created a small patch in the backyard and planted some of the bulbs there, as well. Again, they multiplied like crazy! The digging up and replanting process got to be quite involved.
And then I got tired of it all.
One Autumn was particularly inhospitable, so I didn’t bother digging up all the Canna bulbs—just a small bucket. The rest, I decided, could turn to mushy compost over the winter months.
I don’t remember what happened the following Spring, but for some reason, the bulbs never got planted. Instead, they went on the yard waste pile at the side of the garage. This is the catch-all place for dead plants, sometimes grass clippings, occasionally the Christmas tree. It’s in a spot not very visible to us or our neighbors. It also gets terribly overgrown with weeds and some kind of vine that grows everywhere, all over everything!
This was at least ten years ago. Our yard hasn’t seen a Canna since.
Until about six weeks ago.
This summer, we had our garage re-sided, and the guys who did the job also were very gracious to clean out the yard waste pile. They loaded up all the debris, branches, and old Christmas trees to take to their burn pile. They even pulled up a bunch of the large weeds and as much of the vine as they possibly could. Then, to get rid of everything else undesirable growing in the area, I attacked it with a kill-everything herbicide. A couple of times.
For the first time in years, that side of the garage actually looked presentable! I plan over the Winter to try to figure out what to do with the area in the Spring.
Since I hadn’t checked the weed situation for a week or so, I popped my head around the corner of the garage one day and was startled to see something growing that looked quite familiar.
How could this be?
There, next to the telephone pole, what looked to be Canna lilies had popped up out of the soil! Had been years since we had any growing, so I was skeptical if that’s what they were.
After a couple more weeks of continued growth, the tell-tale blossoms finally appeared and, sure enough, a half dozen “volunteer” Cannas graced the ugly side of the garage with a surprising bit of beauty.
I don’t have a clue how those bulbs survived the last ten winters without turning to mush. Perhaps they were so far under the pile of lawn debris that they were protected from freezing?
And I also don’t understand how they never showed up before. Ten years of lying dormant? Had they started to grow, but got choked out by the weeds above? And how did they not get killed by the herbicide?
I’m sure some horticulturist reading this could explain it all to me, but I’m not one, so the mystery only makes the surprise all the greater.
And what a delightful surprise! I gave up on the Cannas years ago and have thought little of them since.
Got me thinking about life…about people…about John Mark and the potential for a pleasant surprise.
Let me explain.
John Mark turned out to be a terrible disappointment to the Apostle Paul. When he and Barnabas left for their first missionary journey, they took Mark along as a helper (you can read about it in Acts 13). But at some point along the way, for some reason not explained, Mark deserted the cause and returned home to Jerusalem.
Again, we don’t know why, exactly, but it’s clear that Paul was not too happy about it.
After that journey was completed and some time had passed, Paul suggested to Barnabas that they re-visit all the places they went on the initial missionary endeavor. Barnabas was all in, but he suggested they take Mark with them, too.
“No way!” said Paul. “He’s not dependable or trustworthy. He’ll just desert us again!”
In the end, the two men separated, dividing the territory for revisiting, and Paul took Silas with him, while Barnabas did indeed take Mark.
Fast forward to the end of Paul’s life. He’s sitting in Roman dungeon awaiting execution—martyrdom for the Christian faith. His final letter was to a younger man in the ministry, Timothy. As he closes the letter, Paul springs on us a great surprise!
The lonely, incarcerated apostle urges Timothy to come visit him, and then drops this:
“Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.”
– 2 Timothy 4:11
Wait. What?
Mark the deserter is useful to the deserted for ministry???
How did that happen?
No clear answers. Perhaps the journey with Barnabas was rehabilitative. Perhaps guilt overwhelmed him, and he repented and rededicated himself to Christ and His service.
However it happened, what a delightful surprise that one who had been essentially “written off” and forgotten shows up years later blossoming and bearing useful fruit.
Know anyone like that? Someone who’s disappointed you, perhaps even deserted you? Someone you’ve essentially “written off,” thinking the path they’ve taken will never bring them back around.
Be patient.
You never know for sure whether there’s a root with some life still in it. If so, you may very well live to see a delightful surprise blossom before your eyes!
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