My favorite quote from a Disney animated film has to be “Who’s driving this flying umbrella?” If you can’t place it, this one is from Robin Hood, asked by Little John when he gets swept up by a bunch of rhinoceros guards who ran into a pavilion at the archery tournament and kept charging. I like to ask it when a work meeting’s start time has passed and the meeting organizer isn’t yet present.
On a more serious note—and having a lot more to do with the topic of this post—in the film Mulan, the emperor tells Shang, “The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.” Many of our favorite stories (books, movies, and so on) are about characters who triumph over significant challenge and conflict and in the process become much more than they were.
At its most basic, the Parable of the Night Blooms describes this possibility within each of us. We don’t find out what we’re really made of when the temperate sun shines and the pleasant breeze blows in the spring.
The additional interpretations I place on this parable are, first, hope, and second, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
The ancient prophet Moroni wrote, “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God” (Ether 12:4). When does hope really grow? Is it when life is easy? When life is easy, hope is easy because I can easily transfer positive current circumstances to positive future circumstances in my mind.
But when things get dark—that’s when hope needs to grow and become stronger—to bloom. That’s when we really need that color and beauty.
And what is our hope based upon? The fact that while He faced oppressive darkness in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross of Calvary, Jesus Himself rose to the occasion of shouldering the demands of the justice of God. In the darkness, He bloomed. With His victory comes all the reason for our own hope to bloom.
Perhaps we don’t recognize our need for mercy and grace as much as when we are in the midst of trial, sin, or temptation. In a vision received by the prophet Lehi, people traversing a path toward a tree that represented the Savior were overshadowed by a mist of darkness. Having glimpsed the tree earlier, they would have needed to nurture a hope within themselves that pressing forward would lead them to the tree and its fruit. (See 1 Nephi 8:10–24.)
When you feel you are in the midst of dark mists in life, I hope you will remember how Jesus bloomed when surrounded by our darkness, and that doing so will cause your hope to flower and burst forth.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
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The Weekly Parable 