A VERY SAD ENDING -- OR MAYBE NOT?

I had a beautiful Thanksgiving cactus sitting on my windowsill that surprised me this year by blooming in March. 

Not only did it bloom at an unusual time of year, but it had more blooms on it than ever before. and was quite a spectacular sight.

It did have one quirk though. The side of it next to the window would bloom but the other side facing the inside of the room would not. So when the window side was full of buds I would turn the plant around to give the other side a chance to bud as well.

And then the unthinkable happened.

After the last turnaround, all the buds and blooms on the side now facing the room made the plant lopsided and it tipped over. 

This was the shocking sight that greeted me when I walked by a few hours later, and I'm ashamed to say that my very first thought was not of what had happened to the plant, but rather one of frustration at the mess it had made on my freshly vacuumed carpet and the inconvenience of having to stop what I was doing to clean it up and figure out what to do.

I couldn't just pick it up and put it back on the windowsill because quite a few pieces of it had broken off in the fall, making it even more unbalanced than it had been before. Plus it had obviously gotten too big to safely sit in that spot anymore or this mishap would never have happened in the first place. 

Much as I love my plants, I am no gardener at heart. I'd rather be able to just enjoy them without having to put in the effort to  prune and repot and treat infestations and all the things that go into nurturing them and giving them the proper care. 

In the end, what I did was give the part still in the pot to one of my neighbors who loves plants and who has a much greener thumb than I do, in the hopes that she can do whatever needs to be done to fix it, and that it will thrive under her care and give her as much pleasure as it gave me. 

I then picked up all the pieces that had broken off and put them in a couple of smaller pots, probably overcrowding them, because I didn't have the patience to wait until tomorrow to go out and get some more pots, and because the thought of having to add one more chore to an already overwhelming day felt like too much to handle. 

I'm sure there is a lesson here for me to learn. Like not being so slothful and taking better, more timely care of the things I treasure. This mishap could have been avoided had I moved the plant when I first noticed it getting wobbly, or repotted it, but I kept putting it off.

I am so grateful God does not treat me the way I treat my plants. I am grateful that He is so patient and long-suffering and never gives up on me. I am grateful for His unconditional love even when I mess up, and that He is never too busy or too tired or too stressed or overwhelmed to take care of my needs or to pick me up when I fall down. 

Maybe by His mercy and grace at least one of the cuttings will survive and even thrive? And just maybe, going forward, He will give me the willingness and commitment to amend my ways?