The gift of a Flower

I love to feel the soil in between my toes, I often garden barefoot for that reason (and have pulled a few thorns out too!)  I love to feel the beauty of nature around me and I guess you could call me kinda a naturalist, or call me what my mom and dad did...Fanny Farmer!  I love to be in the sun, and sometimes wonder if I am a reptile, cause I love to sit in the sunshine!  It is very hard to live in a area where there is such a cold winter, that seems  to drag on!  not only is it cold, but the  sun comes up after 7am and goes down about 5pm! and when I am at work enclosed in a windowless building  and when I go in the sun is just coming up, and when I leave it is going down!
  It seems like January through march is the hardest time of the year for me.  I think I have SAD's (Seasonal Affective Dissorder)  I had a dear freind give me a gift for christmas this year...Something I would have never thought of going out and getting myself, something that has been very theraputic for me.
 It was a Boxed Amaryllis bulb.  Who would have thunk it! a bulb would be so theraputic! I certainly had never thought about it, other than I love to get flowers in the winter cause it renews my spirit.  So I got the bulb out of the box and planted it in the pot included.  I was so excited to see what happened.  On the box it showed that the bloom time would put it sometime in February....Wonderful, I thought! This is right when I start getting cabin fever from being cooped up all winter.  Every day I looked at my pot, and nothing, and nothing and after a week, still nothing.  I have even been known to talk to my pot, please grow....and then one day it happened,  bulb began to take hold, and turned green and then the tip poked out of the pot! I was so excited, I feel like a little kid doing a science project of growing a bean seed!
Watching this flower grow has helped me think about how much my Heavenly father loves me that he would inspire a angel to give me such a gift!  I have watched my bulb grow and it has excited me so much to look at its progress everyday.  I am sure to some out there you are wondering why something growing in a pot can excite someone! But it does!  I have pondered and paralleled the bulb in the pot to life, any aspect of life really.  First of all, we are babies, we are fed and nurtured, given warmth and love, and we thrive and grow, we through lifes experiences grow stronger and bigger, and then it happens...We bloom!  A beautiful sight to behold.  Everyone around us notices the beauty...now the trick is to not wilt! but unfortunatly there will come a time that we will wilt and wither, but then the master (our Heavenly Father) can replant us the next season, and we again will grow and bloom.  So many times in my live I have felt that I have been nurtured like a flower, I love to read my scriptures, I feel that I have so much growth from them, and hopefully some day I will bloom and the master will be so proud of me and pleased with my beauty.
 I will be ever so grateful for the gift of the flower, and  for the strength that a bulb has given me.  I think that next year, I will plant several of them, but stager them through the month, so that they will all bloom at different times, so that I may have continuous joy in watching one of Heavenly Fathers creations The Amaryllis!

By the way, Easter is one of my favorite holidays and Spring is my favorite season!   I love the "Re Birth" of nature, and am thrilled when I see flowers popping their heads up through the soil.  I love it when the  leaves on the trees start to green up and develop.  I love the blossoms on fruit trees, and seeing the earth transformed.  I Love Easter because of the same reasons...Jesus Lived (summer) Taught his followers (Fall) then was crucified for our sins (Winter) so that we may have the resurrection (Spring)
Spring is a renewal of spirit!  It is a time to feel the joy of the beauty around us, and know that our Father in Heaven loves us!  To feel the warmth of the sun on our face once again and have hope that we will not have to have a winter again for 9 months!  and just like in life, we have trials and tribulations, Spring has its cold days and sometimes even rainy or snowey, but we know that once the rain stops, and the sun comes out, we will be able to bask once again in ist warmth.