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Echinasia

                         

      Several years ago, I planted seeds of different herbs in plant pots, and put them on my porch, hoping to begin an herbal garden. The seeds that were planted were basil, thyme, rosemary, dill and echinasia. None of the seeds sprouted in the pots, so I judged the entire project to be a complete failure.
      The next year, some of those same variety of herbal seeds were planted directly into the garden, with the same result—none germinated. Though I love gardening and plants, a green thumb is not something that I have!!
      Some chives did grow, because a kindly neighbor gave me a clump from her garden. I also planted 2 or 3 long planters with pepper seeds, which had been saved from the previous year's crop of peppers. Those seeds sprouted, but because they were sprouted outdoors in the cold of March, the cold weather killed them. (There was not a place indoors to sprout seeds).
      During the summer, some unknown seedlings sprouted in the pots, in which the peppers had germinated. The seedlings appeared to be weeds, and I pulled up some of them from one pot, but let them grow in another, allowing them to grow to full maturity. Much to my surprise, these “weeds” developed lovely, purple flowers. With amazement, I realized that they were echinasia or cone flowers, after I looked them up on the internet.
      So the original project, which was deemed a failure, had come to fruition and produced some beautiful echinasia flowers after all, several years later. How this is like life—when even our best plans or efforts fail. We need to entrust the wreckage to our Heavenly Father and see Him bring new life and purpose.