When You Feel You're In a Dead Season

If you’ve ever gifted me with a beautiful plant, I need to apologize to you and probably re-gift the money you spent.  It’s most likely dead now.  I’m sorry to break the news like this. 

I unashamedly confess that I have no green thumb and I have yet to meet a plant I didn’t kill.  It’s not intentional.  I really do try. I always start off with the best of plans.  But sooner or later I forget about the essential things a plant needs: sunlight, tender care, and what’s that really important one?  Oh yeah, water.  

Every morning at my girls school, my oldest daughter Brooke, likes to literally stop and smell the roses.  She likes to see which flowers have fully bloomed overnight.  To her it seems like there are new flowers to smell every morning. She takes in all of the colors, pigments of pinks and reds.  She loves it and it’s really sweet to watch.

After one of our recent morning walks Brooke put in her request that we get some similar flower power in our front yard.  I agreed that we needed a little pop of spring color.  So the following weekend we trucked off to one of our local stores to pick out some flowers.   

I talked to Brooke about how we needed to care for the flowers and watched her eyes light up as petals of pink filled the pot in our backseat.  Okay, here is the honest to goodness truth of the matter.  I sort of, kinda, okay I straight up forgot, about that beautiful pot of pink flowers for some odd days. 

Mama, where our flowers go? They not here anymore?   I then had to break the bad news to my little girl that mama had forgotten to water the flowers and that they probably wouldn’t grow anymore.  Daddy would throw the pot away and we would need to pick out some new ones.  Ones that I wouldn’t forget to water mind you. 

Fast forward a couple weeks.  That poor potted plant stood alone by our front porch looking sad and neglected and…thirsty.  Ugh.  I keep forgetting to throw that thing away, I would think after I passed it day in and day out.  It looked awful.  Dead.  Dry.    

Or so I thought. 

It wasn’t until I walked past it the other morning that I noticed something completely different about that poor potted plant.  There were blooms growing on it. 

I couldn’t believe it.  The plant was fully functioning again, without my tender green thumb to attend to it.  It still looked a little dry, but there were plenty of bright pink blooms bursting out of it.  We had experienced a tiny spring shower the week before but I didn’t think it had been enough to bring the flowers back.  Brooke and I were both so excited.  All was not lost for our tiny plant!

As I loaded my girls up in the car for school, I realized that our plant wasn’t just a reminder that I had a serious lack of gardening skills.  It was a symbol of hope.

Today you may feel like you’re in a dead season.  Perhaps you’ve given up on some of your dreams.  Or you feel like your marriage has hit a hard place and can’t be restored.  That your Prodigal child will never return.  Maybe you thought you would be in a different place in your life by now.  Or maybe today you’re agonizing over a situation that you can’t see an end to.  You’re deep in a pit and have a hurt that won’t go away.  Let me share with you friend this powerful message today:  

God restores even the deadest of seasons. 

Sometimes we feel like we are in dead seasons.  Prayers go unanswered.  We struggle to make sense of why we are going through a difficult time or situation.  We put our dreams on hold because nothing has happened with them.  Maybe even our faith becomes stale.  We feel like that dry, dead plant. 

We are desperate for God.

We want answers from Him.  We want to know that good will come from the dark pit we are in. We hang onto the hope of better days to come.

Friend, I don’t know what you’re facing today, but I know that God can bring forth blooms from your dead season. 

God has not forgotten you.  He is not ignoring your requests.  

He sees you fully.  He has purpose for this season.

Now I don’t know much about gardening, but there is one thing I do know.  After the hard winter season, when it seems it can’t get any colder, any deader than it is, the sunshine breaks through the clouds.  Trees begin to get their leaves back.  Flowers in all hues burst out of the ground ready to greet us with the warmth and color of spring.  I know that beauty comes from dead seasons because I can see it all around.

If God takes care of our trees and flowers and fields by the cycle of the seasons, my beloved, what makes you think He doesn’t care for you and the tough season you’re faced with?

You will not be in this dead season forever.  God is a God of restoration and of life!  The question is, will you use this season to draw closer to Him?  Will you choose to trust in His faithfulness?   Will you use this season to point others towards the glory of God? 

I discounted our plant.  I was ready to toss it aside because it didn’t look like it was producing anything.  Sometimes the hardest of seasons look like they’re not producing anything.  But don’t discount how God is working.  Because He is sweet friend, Oh how He is. 

I’m happy to report that our plant is still going strong.  Each day I find more bright pink blooms await us when we pass by it every morning.  I wish I could say with confidence that those precious flowers will last, but I just know myself too well.  It’s only a matter of time.  Sorry flowers.