When my husband and I moved into our new (to us) house last year, we had no idea what the yard would look like come spring. We just knew we loved the house and felt it was meant for us. Fast forward a few months and the foliage all around the house started to come to life.

Ah! The beginning of spring.

We had all sorts of plants, bushes and trees. We were excited to get out there in our slightly neglected yard and bring it back to its former glory.

That’s proven to be a lot harder than we thought.

Oh, it’s happening, but it’s been a mountain of hard work and who knew we’d need an education in botany? Thank you YouTube!

Anyway, one of our concerns was the beautiful crepe myrtles that sat just inside of the property line providing a barrier wall to the street. We loved them and couldn’t wait for them to flower to see what color the blooms would be. We have three in a row by the property line and then two more on either side of the driveway, plus one more for good measure in the back yard. Several weeks into spring, just on the cusp of summer, they began to bloom. A glorious white flower covered the ones by the driveway and pink blooms for the back yard. But, curiously, not a single flower on the three by the road. We waited and waited only to be disappointed time and again.

Finally, when we were convinced something must be wrong, my husband did some detective work and found our trees have a disease. The black tree trunk and the spots on the leaves, even though they were a healthy looking green, told the story that something was attacking our crepe myrtles. It ended up being some type of insect, not visible to the human eye, apparently, or just really good at hiding, that was causing the problem, making our trees unhealthy and therefore not able to flower.

All their strength was focused on staying alive, flowering was the least of their concern.

After much research, thanks Google, my husband found something he could spread on the ground around the tree trunk that would, they promised, kill the nasty bugs and allow the tree to return to full health. That is, if it wasn’t too late. Why do they always put that disclaimer in there in fine print? (Rhetorical question.) “WILL HEAL ALL THE PROLEMS” in bold lettering, but always in small print “maybe.” Well, we decided it was worth the gamble.

We bought the stuff and treated the tree and held our breath.

Days, months, years went by, okay, not really, not years. But days and months did go by and we started to see a few flowers here and there. The trunk of the tree started to become brighter until… you know what happened?

I walked up to our house from a long walk with my hubby and our Golden, Jake, and realized it had lots of flowers!!! Not just one or two or a few but MANY glorious flowers! I was thrilled. I nearly skipped into the yard and I told my guy, “You know what that is?” He shook his head knowing it wasn’t the obvious answer I was looking for, “that’s what healing looks like.” He agreed.

It’s been slow, it’s taken a lot of TLC, but in time, because that’s what it takes, we are witnessing HEALING!!

And it’s beautiful!

Whatever stage you are in in your healing journey, don’t give up. Maybe you’re just glad to be making it from day to day, survival is you mantra, don’t lose hope. Keep doing the work, applying the healing balm of God’s promises to the injured places of your heart…and wait. Your days of blooming again are coming, it takes time to heal.

I wonder if trees could talk if this one would say “thank you.” I kind of feel like it’s trying to communicate it’s gratitude by pushing out as many blooms as its (on the road to recovery) limbs can handle.

You’re welcome, beautiful one, you’re welcome.

I can’t wait for next year!