From where I sit I can look out the window and see my petunias. That is the first thing I do these spring mornings when I sit down before my typewriter to begin the day’s work. The blooms are of varying colors and design, and very beautiful. It gives me a lift to look at them, puts me in a good mood for my work. It gives me a sense of accomplishment, for I planted them.

Planting things, seeing them come up and grow, seeing the first blooms appear, the feeling that you have had a part in it—it’s a wonderful experience. It gives you a new sense of the mystery and wonder of the plant world.

I am moved to write this sermon because of what I saw happen to my beloved petunias—stricken down and beaten into the dirt by a rainstorm. After the storm was over, I went out to see how badly they had been battered. They had taken a terrible beating, and I thought they were utterly ruined. I came back into the house looking glum. My wife wondered what was the matter. “My petunias,” I said, “my poor petunias—they are ruined.” But looking out my window the next morning, I saw a miracle—my precious petunias were standing up as proudly as ever, and the blooms were as beautiful as ever. You can imagine how I was lifted up when I saw how they had lifted up.

I thought at once of Jeremiah’s question concerning the beaten people of Judah: “Shall they fall, and not arise?”

My plants feel flat under the lash of the storm, but they rose up again.

Why should not a fallen nation, or a fallen man, rise up again?

Men and plants can fit their lives to many ill winds which blow, can meet misfortune or adversity, face up to it and last it out. Nations can do it. You can do it!

No failure or defeat is final, unless one surrenders and gives up.

You may have suffered some misfortune, but God can transmute your misfortune into good fortune.

This is the lesson that came to me from seeing my battered petunias triumph.