a little orchid story

I love orchids but had never really bought them before Brazil because they're so expensive in the US. They're a lot less expensive here so I have bought probably more than my fair share. When we lived in Brasilia, quite frankly I treated them as annuals: they bloomed, the blooms fell off, I looked at the leftover greenery and decided there would never be any more blooms, and promptly threw the whole plant away.

Then we moved to Sao Paulo and I heard discussions among my friends here of just setting aside the past-bloomed orchids on your balcony and leaving them. You can still enjoy the greenery and the orchids will eventually re-bloom. So I studied a little bit on where to cut off the stalks after the flowers died, and I had a nice little collection of sort of straggly-looking plants on my air conditioning unit on the balcony.

I went out on the balcony a couple days ago to water all the plants, and wouldn't you know that one of the orchids has got new blooms on it. It's my favorite orchid, too, so I think it wanted to show off one more time for me before we leave and I have to give it away.

I also think this is God telling me personally the Easter story of the resurrection. We give up on something, thinking that it's dead, and then there's new life. It wasn't the thunderbolt message that I might have heard faster, but it's so appropriate for the week after Easter that it now seems louder than a thunderbolt.