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In the spring, I planted flower seeds in a cleared area of the garden. They grew prolifically and added even more color to the wildflowers in the field beside it. They lasted well into the fall, adding vivid splashes of gold, orange, pink, and red to the languishing landscape as the leaves began to fall from the trees.

Now, I look at the landscape, and everything is completely brown and dry. It seems as if nothing is left, and no hope for beauty will come from this place. As the flowers dried up, I tried to harvest the seeds to be planted later. At the beginning of fall, even though the flower was wilting, it was still not ready to release its seeds as long as any green was still left. But now that all the flowers are completely brown and dry, the heads of the flowers are more relaxed and crumble easily in my hands, and the seeds fall out effortlessly. I am harvesting seeds of hope.

As I gathered the seeds in the bleak but serene landscape, I pondered how our lives are like these flowers. Just when we think things look the most grim and impossible is when seeds are released, and hope is born.

Sometimes, when things look the most impossible, we can release seeds that will provide new life and beauty in the future.

Perhaps we need to be more patient with our circumstances and wait as things get browner and drier. Maybe we need to relax and be willing to be crumbled in God’s gentle hands, releasing seeds of hope for the future.

From the packet of seeds that I planted, I obtained about fifteen plants, which I then put in our garden. Not every seed grew into a mature plant, but those that did produced a thousandfold.

Sometimes, God allows times of death or dryness. Those times can help us release seeds that will produce many times what would have been otherwise.

Trust God when everything around you looks dead, dry, and barren. You are releasing seeds. Life will once again be filled with beauty and color.