What Takes 3 Years?
19 April 2023
Three years.
Did you know that gorgeous Easter lilies take 3 years’ worth of careful precision to be ready for Easter Sunday? I didn’t! Lately at COS, we’ve enjoyed a diversity of flowers as part of our “Easter garden,” but the lily is a must-have. Here’s how Quin Caldwell summarizes the amazing tale of the 3-year cultivation process: “Getting millions of specimens of a narrowly-naturally-distributed southeast Asian plant to open all their little trumpets out of season, far from home, on exactly the same (Easter) weekend (and a different weekend each year at that) is no joke. Even less so when you realize that each bulb takes three years to bloom.
Over those 3 years, the slowly developing bulbs are planted, dug up, moved, replanted, checked, replanted again. They say that each bulb will have been touched by a human 40 different times before it’s sent off (though that number might be a Lent-based exaggeration). The bulbs then arrive at commercial greenhouses all over the country. There, through careful manipulation of temperature, humidity, and other factors, the bulbs are coaxed to bloom just in time to be sent off to churches and chapels everywhere.”
Wow! I say those 3 years are worth the wait! But you know what? This Sunday, we celebrate God-given gifts EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL than the lily! They too, have been on a 3-year journey. Like the lily, they too, have had countless caring workers add their formative touch.
Who are we talking about? The 2023 Confirmation Class! Just like the lily, the faith growth of these lovely kids didn’t happen “accidentally. Or easily. Or quickly. Both the lilies and our youth demand the investment of many lives. They require an extraordinary amount of tending.” But they are worth it!
So, thanks to our Interim Director of Youth & Family, Shelly Jakubowski. Thanks to our parents and small group leaders. Thanks to Sunday School teachers and VBS instructors. Thanks to musical group directors and those who bought Spaghetti Dinner tickets to send them to camp. Thanks for everyone who pointed them to the Resurrected Lord of Joy and Life who took his own 3-year journey so our kids could take theirs.
- Marius Bogdanski
- Bella Frolio
- Nate Gundersen
- Vanessa Hausner
- Ava Kelly
- Xander Lee
- Brad McCumber
- Jonah O’Clair
- Gio Okoronkwo
As we joyfully celebrate the Easter, the climax of Jesus’ 3-year ministry, how we rejoice in the 3-year ministry COS has poured into these vibrant young people, who will carry the Easter movement forward!
In Christ’s hope,
Pastor Fritz
Let us pray.
Lord, remind me that like a lily, like Jesus’ ministry, like the faith formation of our confirmands, sometimes great beauty takes time. Help me be patient about the growth in my life that won’t take place overnight, but over the years. Let me see and show gratitude to all the people you put in my life that tend to my growth process . . . and then use me to be of positive impact in someone else’s life too. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
