Die or Fight?

Do you ever feel like this? Dry and dead with no life left?

This was the state of one of our holly bushes we planted in April. It was flourishing until…..the scorching 100 plus degree heat burned almost every leaf on it. Regardless of the amount of water most of the leaves fell off, leaving nothing but bare twigs.

We babied it, fertilized it, watered it, talked nicely to it. But got nothing in return. The parched, brown leaves just wouldn’t stop falling off. It’s like they just gave up; didn’t want to fight to keep living.

And I ask again, have you every felt dry and dead, with no life left. Or no fight left?

We all have felt like this at one point or another. Sometimes it seems the circumstances of life seem to delight in our agony and struggle. When that happens, do you just give up…dry up and die?

Or do you strip down to the essentials, go dormant and ride out the worst of it to grow again later?

I’d all but given up on the holly bush. I was already planning to dig it up, throw it on the burn pile and replace it with one that looks better. But the temps are now more reasonable, and last week something on the bare, brown twigs caught my eye. There were small bumps all up and down the stems. Every day, the bumps grew larger; life was coming back into the bush. Of course, life never really left. it just appeared to have withered up and died because of its circumstance. So, all the nurturing and watering paid off. I just couldn’t see it for a while.

It’s not as lush and healthy as the ones on each side, but given time, it will catch up and be good as new. And while the other lady hollies are busy getting ready for Autumn by putting on their little red berries, this one has decided it’s best to completely start over. This one is showing us that just because we lose most all of our leaves during heated, stressful times, if our core is strong, we can recover and become beautiful once again.

Die or Fight. It’s your choice.