NeuroDivine

Sometimes beauty arrives wearing the clothes of loss.

Outside the dialysis unit, the flowerbeds are filled with colour. Lavender, pink blossoms, silver foliage, and grasses welcome patients and staff alike. Someone has cared enough to plant them, and I am grateful.

I stop to admire them whenever I pass.

Yet I also remember what grew here before.

Wild orchids once appeared among the grass. They were not planted by a gardener. They belonged to the place itself, emerging each summer in quiet faithfulness. They were encouraged by the former gardener. They have gone now, removed when the grounds were redesigned.

The new flowers are lovely. The orchids were lovely too.

Christian faith does not ask us to choose between gratitude and grief. We are invited to hold both together.

Much of life is like that.

A transplant does not erase the years of dialysis. Recovery does not deny illness. New friendships do not replace those we have lost. Resurrection itself bears the marks of crucifixion.

Creation teaches this lesson gently. One flower blooms where another has faded. One season gives way to the next. The landscape changes, yet God’s care remains.

As I paused outside the dialysis unit, I found myself thankful for the flowers before me—and quietly remembering the orchids that once stood there.

Perhaps this is one of the ways we become pilgrims: learning to bless what is present without forgetting what has shaped the ground beneath our feet.