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| No Rain, No Flowers - My Pink Sweatshirt |
I sit in my big red writing chair as rain pours down on a dark, gloomy Thursday in November. Outside my window, I watch the English-style garden in front of my home. My neighbour planted wildflowers there earlier this summer. Although I love gardening, travel kept me too busy to help nurture the little patch of earth that now bursts with colour. Each morning, I’m surprised to see those flowers still standing tall. Fall is nearly over, winter is on its way, yet our garden remains vibrant. Their resilience mirrors the unseasonable rain and rare bursts of autumn sunshine that kept them alive.
Watching the flowers, I’m reminded of a pink sweatshirt I bought a year ago at the Ontario Shores thrift shop during my stay in the psychiatric unit. It reads, “No Rain, No Flowers.” Literally, the phrase fits, our garden owes its beauty to the rain. But as I sat there, I wondered what if the same idea applied to life?
Perhaps it means that the storms we face, the pain, loss, trauma, and the lows that test our strength, are also what help us bloom. The rain becomes the challenge that makes growth possible. The dark days we fight through prepare us for moments of joy and clarity. Healing, like growth, begins in the storm.
When our personal “flowers” finally bloom, they stand as proof of our resilience. If we are the flowers, strong yet fragile, then life itself is the rain. It’s natural to run for cover when the storm hits, but what if instead we stood in it? What if we let it wash away what no longer serves us, cleansing us for what comes next? Avoiding the rainfall only delays healing. Facing it invites transformation.
Flowers, like people, bend under pressure but rise again when the sun returns. The rain may weigh us down, but the warmth that follows restores us. Just as petals lift toward the light after the storm, so do we when we allow pain to teach us rather than define us.
In life, the rain will always come first. Heartbreak, grief, fear, and disappointment will pour down at times, testing our resolve. But after every storm, the sun reappears. Our tears dry. And with patience, we grow back stronger, blooming into the version of ourselves we were always meant to be.
No rain, no flowers. No pain, no healing. No struggle, no growth.
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