Past, Present and Future

This morning as I was coming down the stairs I stopped to admire our two Christmas Cactus plants that we have on the landing between the upstairs loft and the living room.  These two tropicals have quite a lengthy history with our family.  I think the larger of them even predates the birth of our children!  For years I tended and cared for them, but while my Mom’s numerous plants bloomed each year, ours never did.  They always looked healthy and green but never yielded a single bloom until I positioned them in the downstairs bathroom in the house we lived in before we moved to Oklahoma.

Now don’t ask me why I stationed them in that particular place.  That half bath was attached to the family room and was immediately adjacent to the sliding door leading to the backyard.  Needless to say, that room enjoyed a lot of activity!  It was also the home to our cat.  Due to the cat’s young habit of coming into my wife’s and my bedroom in the predawn hours and knocking things off her dresser, we learned early on, that she needed to be put into her own room when the family retired for the evening.  In that particular house, the downstairs bathroom seemed to be the best location.  Anyway, I am not sure if it was the filtered light that streamed through the window or simply the “cat vibes” present in the room, but those two cactus bloomed prolifically for the nine years that we lived in that house.

Since then, once again, the plants have not bloomed!  But coming back to my original thought… At the beginning of this summer I transplanted them using a good potting soil, trimmed their roots and placed them in the landing where they receive filtered light from all directions. What caught my eye this morning was the extravagant amount of new, bright green growth extending from the ends of the leaves of both plants!  With that recognition came the expectation of beautiful flowers in the next few months.

All that history of those two plants that flashed through my mind this morning got me to thinking about my experiences yesterday afternoon.  I spent the better part of that time cleaning out and then shampooing the rug in the Suburban.  (See the 10/7/11 post entitled “The Green Suburban”) I filled up a bucket and a sack with all the multitude of items I discovered hidden in the various nooks and crannies of that vehicle, and needless to say each item was filled with a unique history. 

My thoughts today concerned the fact that although the memories attached to the truck were of happy occasions, they still carried a tinge of sadness because they are of a time that cannot be repeated.  On the other hand, when I completed the task, I drove up to our detached garage, pressed the button on the remote control and sighed a contented “Ahhh!” as I looked upon our shiny new car and began to imagine all the great adventures ahead.

You see, that’s another good reason to let go of the past and to live for the present with high expectation for the future.  While we can’t change or relive the past, the present and future are ours to create!  Remember, “with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26 King James Version)  I encourage you to take that thought with you into this weekend.  Spend some time in the Word and allow the expectations that are found in the Good News to be the water colors you paint on the easel of your life!  (See Colossians 1:5, substituting the word “expectations” in place of “hope”)  Stay tuned and keep asking yourself… “What am I expecting to CREATE today?”