I've been learning some spiritual lessons this month from observing the jade plant on the terrace at the back of my house. For the gardeners among you, I'm referring to crassula ovata - sometimes known as the money plant or friendship plant. Interestingly, it's a succulent plant that's native to South Africa, but I didn't have it in my garden when I lived in Cape Town. In fact, the only reason that I have it now, in Spain, is because I was tired of wasting money on buying pretty flowering plants that lasted four or five weeks and then died in the poor soil on my back and front terraces. On discovering that the jade plant seemed fairly indestructible, managing to survive and propagate itself during the wettest winters and hottest summers, I decided that the best way forward was just to keep taking cuttings and allowing the plant to spread along the narrow soil border behind the house.
You can propagate your jade plant really easily: just chop a limb off an existing plant and bury it in the soil, even without any roots, and it will soon start to grow. You can even take some fallen leaves, spread them out on damp soil and eventually they too will begin to grow into a plant. I was encouraged this month to see that one of the cuttings I'd planted just before Christmas had started to bear pretty, intricately shaped little blossoms - even despite all the winter rain we've had. (Jade is supposedly susceptible to overwatering, and really only needs to be watered once a month.) There's a lesson to be learned from the way that this hardy little plant can put down roots and bear beautiful flowers - even in conditions that are not at all ideal.
Sometimes we look at the circumstances of our lives and we see things that are not so easy or promising; it would be easy to think that our focus should be mainly on surviving and not on thriving. But, just as the prophet Isaiah in the Bible speaks about God being able to bring fruit even in the desert - even in harsh or difficult conditions, God is able to bring good fruit in our lives - even in situations and circumstances that are less than the best. My jade plants in the garden are a reminder to me of that.
Read on, in the next post (below) for some more of the reasons why my jade plant was an illustration and an inspiration to me this month.
