Blooming In The Dark

Blooming in the Dark

I most often purchase my Christmas poinsettias from Brookwood, a residential/vocational ministry for adults with disabilities, some thirty-five miles west of my city. I was once fortunate enough to spend the better part of a day there, meeting many of the residents and talking to them about their work. Every person I met happily described the job they were doing, introduced me to other residents, and even invited me to join them in their task.

I learned that planning for the community’s annual crop of nearly forty-seven thousand poinsettia plants had begun in early summer. The day I visited, residents at work in the horticulture greenhouses were preparing potting soil in containers, separating and placing seedling plants into flats, and moving the plants into their temporary growing spaces. In just a few weeks, a master gardener explained, these growing plants would be placed in complete darkness to encourage their blooms.

In complete darkness for up to fourteen hours a day for at least forty days. Without that long period of darkness, there can be no brilliant red, pink, or soft-white blooms. Just the smallest exposure to light during this time can adversely affect the eventual crop. But when the darkness is respected and endured, the end result is row upon row of vibrant beauty.

Just like the poinsettias, Brookwood itself was born out of a dark and uncertain time: its founder is the mother of a child with special needs. She envisioned and sought something more for her daughter than a lifetime in an institution. But before Brookwood bloomed, there was plenty of darkness.

A wise and kind friend of mine once observed that good things seemed to be coming from my own unwanted stretch of darkness. Creative work finding new expression. A stubborn resurgence of joy. Even a few wild splashes the color of hope. And why not? God’s greatest gift was born in the deepest dark.

Are the lights seemingly out where you live? Do not despair. God is working, even in the dark—and he alone knows the time required to nurture the manifold blooms that he has in mind.

Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day.

Psalm 139:12, NASB