Bottlebrush

I am pleased to report that my bottlebrush (callistemon) plant is flowering. It failed to bother for the past couple of years but our long, sunny spring might have persuaded it to think that it was still in its native Australia. And well might it; one of my Australian sisters is over to visit, meeting all the relations and staying awhile at my modest abode this month. If she is homesick, the old bottlebrush flower might remind her of that sunny homeland from which she hails.

The Christian has never been to heaven, at least not yet, even though that is where we know we belong. Occasionally, God gives us little tokens of our true home to revive flagging spirits and to remind us that this passing world is not to be gripped and grasped.

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” John 14:1-3, New King James Version