Or I could summarize, with less hilarity: I sat on one of my wife's house plants and broke off a main stem. Since my wife inexplicably likes these things, sitting on one of them was not the smartest thing I have ever done. To be honest, it joins a very long list of "probably not the smartest things" I have been compiling over the course of our marriage. So I suppose she should be used to random acts of plant-breakage.
But I immediately took the coward's way out and stuck the broken branch back into the dirt. My granddaughter, who witnessed my horticultural mayhem, counseled me to come clean and tell Nana. "Just say you're sorry." This proved to be great advice. As King David said, "when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long." Of course he had committed adultery and murder, and all I had done was murder (so I thought) a peace lily.
But the principle is the same. Fess up, throw yourself on the mercy of the court, tell your wife you busted a cap in her plant, so to speak. And I did, and Dionne wasn't mad at me. Actually she started watering my hastily buried branch, and now, five months later, the whole plant is doing great. Go figure. This picture, which I took with my dumbphone, shows the actual plant, with the actual branch, growing like a weed. Or a peace lily. (I added the arrow. We don't really have a literal red arrow floating above our hearth.)
Anyhow, I'm sure there are lessons to be learned here. For example, my wife did an internet search for "peace lily," and found out this plant has, and I quote,"resiliency and a forgiving nature." No kidding.
But, no, I mean spiritual type lessons. So here are three:
1. Don’t trust your instinct to cover up brokenness. Truth and humility are always a better way to go.
2. Listen to little kids, especially your grandchildren. They can be pretty smart.
3. Maybe what you think is irreparable might not be. If Christ can forgive people like you and me, busted plants can grow again. And who knows what else He might fix?
