Violet Hope

I have a small African violet plant in a green ceramic pot.
My parents brought it to me when they came a month ago for my birthday, and it has been struggling ever since.

I have watched as slowly the leaves turned yellow, blotchy, brown, and dry. The buds of hope it had in August have dropped away. I have been frustrated with it... as it sits in my classroom bay window, drinking up the delicious rays of sun, yet producing nothing. I watered it gingerly, waiting for change. But none happened.

Last week was long. It was hard. It was draining. Every time I glanced on my mailbox shelf where my violet sat, I felt a frustration... because in some ways I felt like that yellow-ing little violet. Watered, and soaked in sun, yet not producing, not thriving, not growing, not blooming.

I spent several nights working at school until very late, hardly seeing the sunlight during those days. Some of it was lack of focus, some of it was frustration with new curriculum, and some of it was just pure exhaustion of pouring into twenty little lives without taking time to stop and rest.

While I dislike the billboards that announce "you deserve it!" (especially when "it" is whatever product they are trying to sell), I am realizing the enormous importance of rest.

I continue to strive, to try, to work until I have nothing left, I am completely drained, and I feel no closer to my goal.

The past few weekends I have been very intentional to rest. To take time to spend with dear friends, new friends, old friends. To talk, to pray, to read, to watch movies, to go on adventures, sip coffee, and visit cafes, instead of sitting in a cocoon of 4th grade math worksheets or reading summaries. 

At the end of each weekend I'm always a little nervous to check on my little violet. I'm afraid perhaps it will be completely shriveled and dead.

Today when I did my usual check, I noticed this:

Despite the blotchy scars of exhaustion and sickness on its leaves, it has bloomed.

I was so excited.

And that violet gave me hope. That blooming and thriving is just around the corner.