The Dead Will Rise

About a month ago I took my 117th trip to Lowe's since April (due to my new home). Granted Lowe's calls my name more due to the yard than the actual home. I've re-done every flower bed with new mulch and with every bed being edged with stones. Many trips to buy only manageable amounts loaded into my small SUV.

If you are like me, every trip to Lowe's means just a quick peak to peruse the garden center's flowers. Just a peak to see if there's anything new. Are ya with me? Is anyone hearing me on this?

Well on this 117th trip I was legitimately in the garden center getting more stones and mulch. I passed a clearance cart. Coreopsis. What? Why are those on sale? They look great, still green, and the buds hadn't bloomed yet. Being a perennial they were $4.98 instead of $6.98. I already had one and love it as it continually blooms with small brilliant yellow flowers. [They are still yellow in my front bed.]

So I purchased two. I planted one in the back where there was already a hole waiting to be filled. The other one resided on the front porch temporarily. I knew where I wanted it in the front bed, viewable from the street. I am really not sure why I moved so slowly to plant it. I was faithful to remember to water it on the porch in its original container. I was faithful. Until...we had many days of heat and no rain. And, I was busy pulling crabgrass (a weed) from the back yard, and planting grass seed. That required attention and water. Yet, my sweet little cory sat alone and unattended.

Opening the front door to finally water it, I found it crying to me "why did you let me die?" I stewed over it for awhile, mad at myself for letting it go. I thought that's five dollars. I just wasted five dollars. Five dollars, I tell ya. Yet, I'll use a coupon to get a dollar off an item. Oh well, lesson learned...don't buy until ready to plant. I was over it and accepted my waste.

Being that this week is compost (yard waste) pick up, I went to the front porch to retrieve my dead coreopsis. It was time to accept that cory had to go to the its new home and be recycled into compost. I was going to dump the whole thing, minus the container, into my yard bag. Imagine my surprise when I see little new sprouts at the base. Wow. I was awed. I was going to cut the tops so baby cory had room to grow and flourish. Wait. I have to photo this. Wait. I have to write about this. What? Bore my precious peeps with this? Yes, stay with me. You know I always have a point, even if long-winded

I had been working in the yard prior to this and I was searching for something to write--opening my mind to let God show me. I had something and began formulating it in my head. Soon after is when I found the dead rising. My original topic had escaped my memory.

As soon as I saw my plant I said (to myself, quietly) "and the dead will rise." This plant is much like our lives and our salvation experience. We die to our self, our old life, and then we rise in new life and new birth in Christ. Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:33

When this title came to me, I thought of what God can do with anything dead or dying. Immediately to mind was Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. I've referenced this miraculous event of Jesus' many times over the last two years. Jesus made it very apparent that He did not want to heal a sick man but wanted to raise a dead man. We know Christ had the power to do so and to also get to Lazarus sooner than four days. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." John 11:14-15

Many things that are dead, or dying, He can raise and breathe life into:

♥ dead homes (families)

♥ dead relationships

♥ dead spirits

♥ dead ministries

♥ dead bodies

♥ dead opportunities

♥ dead jobs

♥ dead marriages

♥ dead hearts

♥ dead faith

He can resurrect the dead and bring life unimagined. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us. Ephesians 3:20

Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" John 11:40

Do you think that maybe the power, mentioned in Ephesians 3:20, is partly our believing, mentioned in John 11:40? There is much to be said about our believing or doubting. There is power in believing. There are many accounts of where those 'dying' with ailments rise with health and life because of faith and believing. For a refresher on some of those, read

Master's Touch, Our Faith.

Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." Luke 17:19

All things are possible with God. Mark 10:27

That includes all resurrections being possible.

Nothing is truly dead with His power of life around the corner, is it?!

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Picture is of the dead Coreopsis rising.