Lessons From the Clearance Aisle

Orchids....often I walk by them in the garden center of a store and admire them. They are so elegant, so beautiful and so expensive! They would be a costly and risky purchase as I was unsure if they would flourish under my gardening care.

One day as I browsed my favorite section of the garden center - the clearance cart, they had a very small orchid pot marked down to $1.00. It surely wasn't elegant or beautiful, it didn't even have a bloom on it, but a single green leaf that compelled me to purchase it and give it a chance. After all, the ceramic pot alone was worth the dollar!

I took it home and placed it in a sunny window, faithfully watered it and found a fertilizer just for orchids that was diligently used. After a few weeks, it didn't die! I wasn't expecting much, but under the nurturing it was receiving it began to grow leaves. One day, I spotted a tiny bud! More attention was given to the plant as daily I watched this little bud continue to grow. Eventually a bloom came and then spread down the stem. It is so beautiful, so elegant and everything I love about orchids came to life.

The joy of watching that orchid caused me to consider the beautiful parallel of salvation. When I was a teenage girl, I was marred by sin, with no spiritual beauty, put aside and headed on a path to nowhere. Not looking for God, but in His grace and mercy found me and 'picked me up off the clearance rack". In the safe window ledge of salvation, I turned to the light of God's love to fill me. He watered my soul with His Word and nourished me. As I began to grow and seek Him more, He filled my life with the sun of His love, fertilized my heart and life with mature Christians who encouraged me. Eventually, tiny buds appeared as learned to grow in the Lord and to shed off the old ways that were like dead leaves. The fruit of the Spirit (love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control are characteristics (or blooms) that become evidence of a healthy spiritual life.

I absolutely love my little orchid and gaze upon it with wonder. It is a beautiful reminder that God can take anything, in any condition and make it new. He alone gives new life, new hope and can make all things new. Nothing is impossible with Him.

If you feel like you are discarded on the clearance aisle of life, with dead weight pulling you down, there is hope. God is able! Trust Him, seek Him as a lifeline and watch Him make something beautiful.

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