Triumph of the Tulips

You watched them get planted.  You watched them grow up through the snow.  It only seemed fair that you should get to watch them bloom, too!This story wouldn’t be complete, however, unless I told you about the very last piece of adversity they had to come through to reach this glorious moment of full bloom.Yep.  This would be the guilty culprit, caught in the act of walking nonchalantly into our front yard in broad daylight.  No shame whatsoever.

One morning, I looked out the front window at my flower garden as usual, and my jaw dropped open.  There were literally half as many tulips in the garden as there had been the day before.  I guessed that it had been the deer even before I ran out and found the cloven hoof prints clearly defined in the soft garden dirt.

I wasn’t about to watch the tulips I had waited for all winter be systematically consumed by deer who have the entire national forest at their disposal for dinner, without even getting to watch them bloom!  Where there is a will, there is a way—and bird netting was the answer.

A few days later, under their protective veiling, fat buds on the surviving plants emerged and blushed coral-pink.  Yesterday I took it off for good, as they opened their glowing petals to the morning sunshine for the very first time.  They had persevered through winter, unexpected spring snowstorms and foraging deer—and somehow that made the triumph all the more joyful!

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”  (James 1:12)