Thanksgiving Cactus...

She's in bloom again!  She's actually called a Christmas Cactus, but the past two or three years, she has bloomed at Thanksgiving and Easter and sometimes in between times, so I'm really not sure what to call her.   How about Beautiful?  When the trees are all bare and the the majority of the birds have all flown south and the grasses and flowers are all spent, I am blessed and grateful for my little indoor flower garden.  There is no place of honor where she grows.  She prefers the inconspicuous basement corner near the window in my laundry room to any other place in the house.  It's rather cool and very bright there and I guess she likes the climate.  I'd sometimes like to move her out to the main hub of the house, the dining room , but I know she would not be  happy with so much warmth and attention, so the laundry room remains her happy home.  Since I find myself in the laundry room often, I observe and appreciate her ebb and flow of loveliness.  Now and then I will invite a family member or visitor into the laundry room for a peek at her, but mostly, she lives in seclusion. 

I think of her as a gift from God, given especially to me.  He knows how much I love beautiful, growing things, and He knows that the rough and rustic country where I live does not produce blooms like this, but instead, grasses and forbes, with a beauty of their own, but meant mostly for grazing livestock.  I'm not frustrated by that, but I am grateful when I get the treat of such beauty right where I live -- even in the humble place where it prefers to grow -- the laundry room.  In  remote and obscure places, God brings beauty.  He does it in our lives too.

Be still and know that I am God.
~Psalm 46:10