The Peace Lily

I brought a peace lily home to keep from my Step-dad's funeral last December with the hope that it might not suffer the fate of other plants that came before it. My mom assured me that they are easy care, hard to kill plants even after I reminded her that I have killed a cactus! Well, at first my plant seemed to be doing very well, however, when you don't remove the plastic out of the bottom of the pot, they can get a disease called "root rot" (I learned this the hard way). After my sister diagnosed my plant, I went in search of the solution on the internet...hoping that I can somehow save my plant.

What I read was that in order to save the plant you have to take it out of the pot, remove all the dead, rotten roots, and then put it into a new pot with new soil which will hopefully promote new growth.

Like when Jesus saves us. Be it the initial acceptance of Jesus as our Savior, or the way He "prunes" us so that we can grow and become all that He wants us to be. Pride, envy, anger, sin, insecurity...those are things, like the dead roots on my plant, that choke the life out of us and keep us from growing. Sometimes we can appear to be growing and branching out, but if we are harboring things in our lives that do not line up with the Word of God, it won't be long before our leaves turn brown and our branches fall over. We cannot be effective witnesses for Christ or lead our families the way we are supposed to if our "roots" are rotten. John 15: 2 tells us that the things in our lives that do not bear fruit must be cut back so that new things can grow.

I have done like the internet article said and removed all the dead roots from my plant (thankfully, not all of the roots were damaged and there is one leaf hanging on for now). And I pray that not only will this removal give my plant new life, I pray that this experience will always remind me to let God remove the "rotten roots" from around my own heart.

John 5: 21 "For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will"