This morning, after making the carpool run, I thought it would take me 5 minutes to water the flowers we planted in the cool of the evening.

But no. Something had been eating my hybiscus. They are 7 ft tall! Why would some measely bug think it could have a midnight snack on my beauties? Well, me and Sevendust will teach them a thing or two!!! OK, I confess. It didn't happen overnight. But it just didn't seem so bad when I first noticed it! Snuck up on me, I reckon!

As I started relieving the beloved plants of those holey leaves, I began to see a pattern. For every huge, bug-bitten leaf, there was already a teensy little sign of life coming in! That new life would have eventually bumped off the old, unhealthy one.

So life is. May we welcome those tiny, yet mighty growth patterns in our lives. Shed the old stuff...old habits...sinfulnesses...weakness...there's more to this life!

"Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 3:13-14