A Year of Gratitude – May 18, 2024

I found gratitude and hope in the same place today. It was waiting for me in the garden. That wasn’t much of a surprise.

This time of year, the garden is full of both hope and gratitude. There’s the hope of a beautiful season to come, of an abundant harvest, and of days spent working in the sunshine. My gratitude is for all of those things and for sharing them with the people I love.

This morning, I discovered this iris bud in one of our our perennial gardens. It is a tightly wound collection of purple petals just waiting to unfurl to create a gorgeous iris. I know what it will become. I look forward to these blooms each spring.

But now, it isn’t nearly as grand as what it will become. It’s rather ordinary, or at least it might seem that way. Yet it is anything but ordinary. Just think of the wonder of those pliable petals being so carefully arranged together, so tightly curled around one another to protect themselves, to allow them to gather strength from the roots below their leggy stems to put on the spectacular show they have planned for us.

Really, they’re extraordinary now even though they’ll appear more striking when they open up to full bloom. It’s magical, really, for them to be able to take shape in this way at all. So many miniscule steps have to take place at the right time, in favorable conditions, for the roots that slumber underground all winter to make it this far.

I am grateful for the hope that lives in my gardener’s heart that this bud will open up to a beautiful bloom so that I can share it with you. For now, I’ll marvel at this spectacular bud. It’s beautiful in its own way if you only stop to appreciate it.

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.