Poinsettia

Love…always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:7b

I love poinsettias.  I can’t wait until they come into the stores around Thanksgiving, so that I can look at the colors (old and new) and decide what I want for the Christmas season.  I always have relatively good look with poinsettias – rarely does one shed all its leaves, or die a slow painful death.  I’m not sure whether it is the right amount of water, the light, or the singing owner, but these plants seem to do well in my house.  When I lived in Phoenix, you could transplant your holiday poinsettia in the garden, and it would thrive there. 

The picture above is of last season’s plant – a rare one that I had never seen before.  I think this is supposed to be a “white” one, but it is more like a yellowish cream.  The unusual aspect of this particular poinsettia is that some of its bracts [the flower portion of the plant] are light green with dark green veining – making them look almost striped.  I took the photograph in April – a good long life for a Christmas plant.  However, if you were to walk into my kitchen today, you would see the poinsettia sitting in my kitchen window – still looking fairly decent at the beginning of August.  Through heat and cold, light and dark, water and sometimes not much water – this lovely flower has stuck with me, and I have been blessed by its beauty.

My poinsettia presents a beautiful portrait of our relationship with our heavenly Father.  We talk to Him – we forget to pray.  We read His Word – it gathers dust for a period of time.  We call on Him when we have a need – we forget Him when we don’t.  We praise Him for our good times – we blame Him for the bad ones.  Yet He determinedly sticks with us, and we are blessed by His presence.  He will never leave us nor forsake us.  Count on it.