Red geraniums are one of my all-time favorite flowers. They remind me of Tuscany and Spannocchia. I love the shape of their tender petals and even the smell of their foliage. What's not to love? When it came time to shop for the annuals in my garden bed, they were one of my must haves. I bought several for the flower bed and more for a large pot. Today when I stepped outside, I looked at them and saw just how bedraggled they are now...shriveled leaves, spent blooms now turned black.
To get geraniums to rebloom, you have to deadhead. It's a necessity. As you remove the spent blooms, the plant immediately goes into production mode, its growth chemicals release and it begins work on making more blooms. Otherwise, the plant "thinks" that it has fulfilled its purpose of distributing its seed and will begin to die.
If you came to my home and looked at that pathetic pot filled with dead foliage, I could tell you, "Oh, you should have seen the blooms on that geranium six weeks ago. They were just beautiful!" But that doesn't really do you any good. You weren't here six weeks ago; you can't see what it looked like and even if I had photographs, they couldn't do the beauty justice.
The thing is, sometimes we try to live off of last month's blooms. We try to live off of some past spiritual "high" or past success rather than moving ahead in our relationship with the Father. But just like you wouldn't want to eat food that's already digested or continue to look at dead blooms, you can't live on past success...it can't sustain you. That's why His mercies are new every morning. Yesterday's mercies (yesterday's blooms) aren't enough for today.
I love that God's grace is sufficient, though; He doesn't leave me on my own, to tend this garden, this field that He's placed in front of me. He has given Holy Spirit as my guide, my comforter. He has provided grace and mercy that is new every morning. And He doesn't even expect me to get the results, just to do my part, whether that be watering or planting. I think it's when I start thinking somehow that it's up to me to produce blooms, rather than up to Him, that I get in trouble. So tomorrow, I want to wake up and walk through my day with my eyes on Him, knowing that He's the One with the power to make things grow, to bring forth a harvest from what may look to me to be nothing but dry, cracked earth.
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