By: Marcy Barthelette

Last week I shared a hard-won lesson about toilet paper and I wondered where this week would take me. I like
to talk with God before I write and ask Him to give me the words He wants you to hear. Sometimes a message
is loud and clear but sometimes it is very subtle and requires a little interpretation on my part. The message
this time smacked me right in the face.

A couple of weeks ago I stood looking out my back door at the lawn that Ken had just manicured expecting to
be greeted by a vision of lush springtime green. But I wasn’t! All I could see was an ocean of white fluffy balls

waving in the breeze, just waiting to thrust thousands of seeds in
an all-out assault on our unsuspecting lawn! Before we knew it,
they would sprout everywhere. Soil that seems useless for
anything else will always support dandelions. And don’t you know
they find the tiniest crack in the pavement to sprout and grow like
there’s no tomorrow. It seems they are always in an eager rush to
bloom and seed and drop to sprout again in their vicious cycle of
aggression. I have even watched a bloom cut from the plant or
sprayed with insecticide continue the process of reproduction.
Because it lies helpless on the ground, the wind can’t disperse the
seed so it all drops in the same spot and tries to sprout, sibling
fighting sibling for space and water and sunshine.

Ken often tells me that the dandelion flower is beautiful and, in truth, it is. When you take the time to study one
bloom at a time, they are intricate and quite lovely. Even the seed head has its own unique qualities and I have
to admit that I have spent some amount of time photographing both the bloom and the fluffy white seed head.
They are truly mesmerizing when backed by sunlight.

The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the creator. Louis Pasteur, French Chemist

Nature has many lessons to teach us if we keep our senses attuned to our surroundings. Dandelions, like the
ants in a former article, display a persistence that defies human imagination. Their instinct to survive and
reproduce is so strong they let nothing get in their way, not even mowers or chemicals. Imagine our world if we
could muster a fraction of that persistent endurance.

Flowers grow out of dark moments. Sister Mary Corita Kent, Artist and Educator

You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase, “bloom where you are planted”. Like the dandelion, we should look for
whatever good we can find in the place or situation in which we are planted. There is a reason for everything
that happens in this life. Sometimes we wish we could see the bigger plan; we think life would be easier if we
knew what was coming. But if life were always easy, how would we learn endurance. Remember that diversity
defines personal character.

…because we know that trouble produces endurance; endurance, character;
and character, hope. Romans 5:3-4 ESV

Do you have enough endurance to go the distance?
More next week….