I love the sight of a fully bloomed orchid. It’s luscious, thick, green leaves and it’s colorful blooms are awe inspiring. Usually it’s when I am at the florist or grocery store where I might find one in gorgeous bloom. Once purchased and placed in my home, however, this visual wanes over time. I’m typically left with an empty arm of a plant with no blooms and few, healthy leaves. The number of orchids I’ve doomed to a withered existence saddens me. Yet, recently, I think I figured something out about them and incidentally, myself.

When I first purchased this tropical plant, I inquired of its maintenance. “Only place two ice cubes per week at its base and forget it. Actually, ignore it. Then, it will thrive,” I was instructed. Once in Hawaii, I saw many natural orchids on the stalks of trees high on a mountain. Obviously, the heat and humidity made them thrive. But curiously, they weren’t planted in soil, they were just literally hanging out around the tree. Why did they thrive naturally there and shrivel in my care?

The environment of these beauties plays a critical role in their survival. Just for fun, I took four destitute, orchid remnants and placed them in my laundry room window. I did this to get them out of the way more than salvage them. I watered them for a few weeks (yep, I cheated and bypassed cubes for straight water). And here I must interject that I have NEVER had one of the numerous orchids I have owned rebloom. Once, as a personal challenge, my husband called his landscape architect friend for instructions how to get one to rebloom. He told him to repot them in new pots with bark only and give the requisite watering. And it worked! The tiny bloom was far from succulent but it came back. I’ve never claimed a green thumb but nevertheless, kept my old orchids just in case.

After a few weeks, my laundry room leftover plants sprouted bizarre shaped appendages rising out of the bases. Then one day, tiny nodules formed on a lone branch. My orchid was attempting to bloom again! Three survived and thrived and I now have two reblooming. I did not do research yet still am finding their resurgence daily.

I realized this orchid experiment mirrors my faith walk. I can keep bad habits or can be obedient and disciplined allowing myself to thrive. My faith will expand or wither and it’s up to me. The fruits (or flowers in this case) will come or not. I just have to put myself in the right environment.

After two years of miraculously dodging the Covid bullet, the dreaded virus permeated my defenses and struck without warning. I thought that because I was triple vaxxed, I was somehow safe. How I was wrong! I first noticed a cough, then headache, then the sneezing. And I am talking BIG sneezing- as if you might need to check the adjacent wall for a lung or something. In 24 hours, I was in bed for a full day. This experience has changed my mind and made me aware of some Covid realities.

For instance, how on earth could someone two weeks prior have looked at me and called Covid “just a hoax?” The first night of my hoax was terrible, the second bad, the third tolerable and the fourth is to be seen. I consider myself healthy and figured if I ever got it, I’d probably never know it. What has struck me is how some people show no symptoms at all and others get long haul symptoms. Nobody knows how their body will respond. I attest it is definitely not a hoax. My 32 gallon bag of used Kleenex is my proof.

Another bizarre finding is that two people can share a car ride for hours and one test positive and another negative. My husband, who until today tested negative, swears I gave it to him on purpose (he tested positive today but is asymptomatic). He says that by moving the paper towels to where he had to use my contaminated kitchen knobs and my touching our utensils, that I gave him “Paper towel, spoon Covid.” He’s home quarantining and always ready to laugh. I can laugh too but I’m lucky, because I’m going to get better.

I also learned that I should have been more vigilant in wearing my mask in public places; washing my hands; and keeping my distance from others by 6 feet. Somehow I just willed it to be over- but it isn’t over. I don’t know where or how I got it. That’s scary. Anyone can be a carrier, not know it, and spread it everywhere they go. That includes to someone’s immunocompromised family member or elderly parent. I’d hate to imagine my 84 year old Dad or my elderly friends with it as sick as I’ve been.

We have conflicting directives on how to navigate and respond to positive tests. But I’ve come to realize that recommendations are just that- recommendations. Each person is responsible for their own health but also others’ welfare! Once enough time has passed to understand what we should be doing, then it will have likely dissipated. We cannot wait. If you are positive for Covid and feel perfect, stay home! You could inflict it onto someone else who ends up in the hospital or if lucky like me, just checking the opposite wall for a lung.

I’m a type A, goal-oriented person with a bit of OCD. I like things a certain way and completed when I want. This personality type is both a blessing and a curse. Life has helped me realize that my plans aren’t always best and interruptions can actually become meaningful interactions. I just have to be willing to let them.

I can remember when the phone would ring in the family kitchen and you actually had to stop what you were doing and go over to it and have a focused conversation because you could only move as far as the cord (a cord!) would allow. Now we expect to do multiple things while chatting if we actually speak to a person at all. “Chatting” now means something totally else. Regardless, a phone call can be an interruption or a pleasant interaction. It is my choice.

Going about my business, I can be annoyed or open to those in my path. I recognize it’s all up to me to embrace moments or hurry through them in my own, task-minded world. When I’ve made the slightest effort to be kind or helpful doing any minute act, I’ve found incredible, silent joy, however. Might be small or big, doesn’t matter.

I regret now times of being bothered with my childrens’ frequent interruptions. My ADHD brain would zoom ahead with unmet goals and I’d get tense all because I let myself. All I had to do was stop and embrace the moment. The lost moments’ potential will never be realized. I sometimes wonder what blessings I miss out on being too focused and busy now?

It doesn’t take a degree to understand and develop patience with interruptions, just mindful awareness. Of course, there are times when you cannot and should not stop, but I’m talking more about the mundane. If life is just a series of moments, I’m hopeful my fewer, future moments will be good ones.

There is a small tree in my yard that has been my favorite for years. Each season I anticipate the magenta hues and fiery red leaves that spring forth from what looks like driftwood of a tree. From the drab grey, and lifeless comes a colorful explosion of life. The irony is not lost on me. For years this tree has brought me joy. I lacked words exactly why until recently.

As I shared previously, our property (along with thousands of others) was laid waste by a hurricane. We still have not completed necessary clearing. It is a monumental task dealing with hundred year old fallen trees and towering, aged shrubbery. One has to have patience recovering from storms (pun intended) and this person struggles with that.

The morning after the hurricane, the carnage was astounding. Many gigantic trees (some 90 feet tall) were snapped in half or either uprooted with their gnarly appendages pointing out of the earth. How could the invisible have the strength to uproot towering trees and pummel down fences yet not completely destroy everything? My home was miraculously spared and we suffered only minor damage. The major damage was the yard and it made me gasp. Nature’s storms can be terrifying.

The morning after the storm, I saw my precious little tree nearly leveled by another that was five times wider and taller. It seemed like a metaphor for the hurricane itself. Half its root system was splayed in the air and I groaned at the sight of it. It reflected how I felt inside.

In hope of salvaging our favorite tree, my husband and son used chainsaws to free it from under the other’s pressing weight. It remained almost on the ground but not completely knocked down. (More irony?) When we hired tree fellers to clear some of the unmanageable trees, they used a skidsteer to push the little tree back upright (sort of). We knew this was a futile attempt but had minuscule hope, nonetheless. With its shocked root system, we recognized it probably wouldn’t survive.

Months passed and the little, leaning tree was dormant. Was it dead? It was winter and everything was lifeless anyway. I tried to lower my expectations (of its survival amongst other things). In a few months, yellow-hued dust settled on my porch and carpenter bees started hovering about- signs of spring. Was life being breathed back into my bleak surroundings?

A few weeks later we noticed tiny buds, then full leaves. Life wasn’t over for our tilted Japanese Maple after all. Eventually, the entire tree was bathed in deep ruby and green. Against all odds, the tree survived and it’s beauty framed by my kitchen doors again. It was leaning, but it survived!

This little tree has paralleled my life. Difficult storms have come and gone. I have even been beaten down to the ground before, but my hope has remained. Skidsteers have been others who have pushed me back up and encouraged me onward. Sometimes things seemed dark and dreary but beauty and joy were to be had again. My beautiful, little tree just happened to define all that perfectly.

My spiritual devotionals have a recurrent theme lately. I read several different ones throughout the day and when the same message comes from different sources, I believe it’s the “Big Man” speaking.

“Fear not, for I have overcome the world,” Jesus says in John 16:33. I find tremendous relief in this verse. I don’t think I want to hear the words “Covid” or “Impeachment” anymore. It seems I cannot escape either topic for more than a few minutes. My husband and I were having lunch yesterday and I told him to please stop talking about the virus because I couldn’t bare one more minute thinking about it.

Having an insurrection prior to an inauguration with polarization causes agitation. Everyone seems to have a strong opinion and are convinced THEY ARE RIGHT! I read some comments on Facebook that make me nervous. That is why the verse above is such a comfort to me. If each person were 100% correct, we’d need to all live on different planets as we could not possibly coexist. So what do we do? How will we get through January 20th?

A heated political climate is not new. This has and will happen again. I’m just not sure how all this is going to turn out. When I allow my mind free reign, it tends to create scenarios so preposterous I have to reel it back in with truth like John 16:33. Jesus already overcame the world. The victory is complete. So what else is there to fear? The old adage is fear itself.