I pulled in to work Monday morning and caught a glimpse of color along the gray concrete barrier.

Yes, that's a solitary petunia sprouting (and blooming) right out of a tiny crack in the concrete.

Several yards away, high overhead, hang beautiful baskets of mixed summer flowers and greens, bunched together in comfortable fellowship out of the scorching heat and torrential rains of August. Passersby admire them. The shop owner hand-waters them daily, and plucks the dead and withered blooms to ensure continued beauty and growth.

But this little pink flower, mostly overlooked and fighting a battle simply to survive, is worthy of greater glory and honor than those horticulturists' store-bought baskets. It's this flower I'll remember in the winter. Or the next time I want to quit.

We've all heard someone say "bloom where you're planted." Most of the time we look forward or backward, and never really live in the here and now. The here and now often seems hard. Or impossible. Fraught with adversity.

But when we bloom in spite of the most difficult circumstances, we prove once again to a death-obsessed world (have you watched the news lately?) that the power of life triumphs over death. That hope is greater than despair. That every living thing has the potential to thrive and grow and succeed, wherever and whenever they're planted.

This little petunia is my reminder.
Because I don't always like where I'm planted.