MY AVOCADO TREE
(A FRIEND STORY)
Avocados are one of my favorite fruits—delicious and nutritious. I have various herbs growing on my kitchen windowsill, and decided to use the little remaining space to try to grow an avocado plant.
Following the tips I found online at wikihow.com, I held the seed pointed side up and stuck four toothpicks into the middle section of the seed at even intervals so it could rest half-submerged on the mouth of a small jar filled to the brim with water—and waited. Weeks went by, and there was no sign of life. By all appearances, it could have been a stone rather than a seed! When a month had gone by I considered giving up. Perhaps there was no life in this dull brown seed.
Then a tiny crack appeared at its base. I thought at this point that the seed might simply be drying out, but I was willing to wait a little longer. I changed the water, and a few more weeks passed. Finally a tiny root emerged from the crack. Then another crack appeared, this time at the top of the seed. Slowly but surely a small shoot peeked out hopefully.
Transplanted to a pot of soil, the seed that had appeared lifeless is now growing into a small but healthy plant. Tender green leaves sprout day by day, each growing to several times the size of the seed. This baby tree is proof that there was life inside the seed, despite outward appearances.
As Easter approaches, I am reminded of my avocado-growing experience. How hopeless Jesus’ followers must have felt when they saw Him die on the cross! They watched His lifeless body be carried off and sealed in a stone-cold tomb. They must have felt as though their hopes and dreams were being buried too. I can picture them now, forlorn and seemingly forsaken. Yet hope was not dead! Three days later Jesus would rise triumphant, the victor over death and the grave.
The miracle of Jesus’ resurrection is of course a far greater miracle than my little avocado plant, but what an example that plant is. Even when the outlook seems hopeless, wait on the Lord, and He will work miracles—new life, new hope, new beginnings!
Life after life
What reason have atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? Which is the more difficult, to be born or to rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that what has been, should be again?—Blaise Pascal
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John 11:25 ESV / Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
1 Thessalonians 4:14 ESV / For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
John 6:40 ESV / For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)
