I Wanna be a Pansy!

"He's such a pansy!"   Not something we consider a complement.
To call someone a 'pansy' is to insinuate that he is a wimp, weak, a sissy, someone without a backbone.
I don't know who coined the phrase or the intended meaning ... but they had it all wrong !!

My prayer is ... "Lord, make me a pansy!!!"

I bought a lovely pot of purple pansies earlier in fall -- so pretty !  and I had them sitting outside my kitchen window on the patio table, where I could enjoy them.  The temperatures changed, they turned unseasonally cold.  And then we had a snow storm!  In two hours the accumulated snow measured 6 inches on my patio table, completely covering my sweet pansies ... I looked at them and thought ... 'poor things, you'll never survive this !' .  It was not the first time they had been covered in snow and freezing temperatures but I was sure this time would be their demise.

But to my absolute astonishment and delight, when the snow finally melted, this is what I saw.

My potted pansy was not  dead at all ...  in fact it was BLOOMING !!  Several more times, this potted pansy was covered with snow, and survived.   Then in early April it was covered with hail, but yet again it emerged blooming !

 Looking at my long-suffering pansy, this quote by the apostle Paul came to mind.
It is found in II Cor. 4:8,9

 "We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed, we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed." 

And that last photo speaks to the next verse ... 

"...always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body."

Are we like my pansy? Have we persevered through the 'winters' of our life experiences?  Do our physical bodies perhaps show the destruction caused by this earthly life, but our spirits are still 'blooming', showing forth the good fragrance of His life in us ?

I love pansies and I have tried to shelter them as a house plant.  I quickly found that they did not respond well to be being 'coddled' and I watched them die.  I'm sure every one of us would choose an 'easy life' if we were given the choice- but just like the pansies, we do not do well when everything is easy and we have no challenges or struggles . We very quickly can become spiritually lazy or  die.

"Oh Lord, make me like my pansy. Let me persevere, not with gritted teeth but with grace, never failing to bloom, even in the most dark or difficult times of my life.  May I know that the things of this earthly life cannot destroy me ..  your strength is made perfect in my weakness .. and I will stand victorious on that last day !!"