March 11

It was Abby who noticed this flower as we walked home from school today.

A beautiful, vibrant red flower growing amid a sea of rocks, thriving despite less-than-ideal surroundings. The parallels to human life are obvious: we can not only survive but flourish when life pelts us with lemon after lemon.

For that provision --for perseverance and patience and acceptance and flexibility and all of the other God-given blessings that help us to keep growing even when life is hard-- I'm thankful.