Renewing my Passion......

I have been so blessed by God's provision with the flowers in my garden. This picture is just one of the many flowers growing there this year..... The Passion Flower......

Two summers ago, my mother-in-law and I were at a garden center when I spotted a plant that intrigued me so much, I just had to have it. When I brought it to the check-out counter, the cashier said, "Do you know how to care for a Passion Flower plant?" I was just learning to garden and I had never seen a plant like this one, so I REALLY didn't know how to care for it, so I answered a cautious "no". The cashier said that I needed to plant it in a bigger pot when I got home and fertilize it monthly, take it inside the house in the winter, prune it in the late spring, dead-head it as it's flowering and make sure it stays warm. "GOSH", I thought....this plant is HIGH maintenance! I don't want a plant like that! I'll kill it for sure! When I told the cashier that I wanted to plant it outside, she said sarcastically, "Good luck with that!" I brought it home anyway.

So I came home and "strategically" planted it along the fence in my front yard...in the place with the most sun...in well-drained soil....I REALLY planted it there to fight off the MASSIVE Morning Glory that had overtaken the yard...let's just say THAT Morning Glory was not so glorious. It had invaded every plant and was even growing up through the lawn! I had spent over 6 hours one day digging it up from the roots....long-spreading roots that never seemed to end.....but I had found the MOTHER-LOAD root and had taken an axe to it. I was sure it would finally die. Yeah, it was still growing in places. But the Passion Flower with its climbing power and soft tendrils would fight off the growing Morning Glory....or so I thought.

That summer, the Passion Flower grew like a machine! All over the fence were these beautiful, vibrant, fragrant flowers just like the picture above. I was thrilled. And there were only a few Morning Glory vines popping up here and there! And then winter came. I dressed that vine with fleece and newspaper hoping the cold winter storms wouldn't kill it. It looked sad and I didn't think it would come back. Between all the earwigs that had nested in it in the summer, eating it's beautiful blossoms, the Morning Glory threatening to come back, and the harsh winter freezes, it just couldn't survive. I didn't follow the flowers' care directions either...there was no way this vine was going to survive the winter.

BUT, as spring came, tiny shoots came out of the trunk and tendrils fought their way out to the fence to hold on. IT CAME BACK!! And it came back this year, too! Healthier than ever! Spanning about 50 feet long!!!! God is soooo good! It's life and perseverance has baffled me, so I decided to look up it's background and history. I thought it was called a passion flower because it was supposed to be an aphrodisiac or something....the fragrance is so potent. But here's what I found....

When Christian missionaries arrived in South America in the 16th century, they found a plant which they felt was a good "omen" for their mission. They called it the passion flower because to them it symbolized the death of Christ. The five sepals and five petals of the flower represent the disciples without Peter and Judas (supposedly because they betrayed Jesus). The double row of purple-colored filaments, called the corona, signifies the halo around Christ's head or the crown of thorns, the purple signifying the royalty of Christ as King of kings. The five stamens, where the yellow pollen is, symbolize the wounds and the nails respectively. The vines tendrils resemble the whips used when Christ was beaten. The three brown round things with the flattened heads represent the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Pretty amazing, eh? And yet, I think those missionaries were in la-la-land when they came up with this! But after seeing my Passion Flower endure crazy weather, horrible garden pests, a REALLY AWFUL Morning Glory plant (which reminded me of the devil!) and a far-from-expert gardener...I must say it has reminded me of Christ more than any other flower I've seen. The Morning Glory (the devil!) is gone, too! The Passion Flower's strength, perseverance and the pure joy it gives me when another bloom bursts open gives me hope from my Jesus. It renews MY passion. God is my expert gardener....Mmmm. That reminds me of John 15:1-5:

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

AWESOME!