European Frog Bit

European Frog Bit

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13 (NIV)

Perhaps you remember the leeches? A few weeks ago, leaning over the gunwale of our canoe to examine a leech, I noticed the delicate flowers of a plant I had never seen before. Curious, I took this photo and looked it up on the internet when I got home.  

It is called European Frog Bit, and was brought to North America to be cultivated as an ornamental water plant on Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm in 1932. It escaped, making its way over time to exotic places like Potsdam, NY.  It knows the secret of being content in any and every situation, and so, it thrives!

European Frog Bit is a charming plant, with tiny lilypad leaves and leathery white blossoms that each have a golden crown in the center.  The flowers are no bigger in circumference than a dime!

This is a plant that can grow in just about any fresh body of water, and it has been making quite a splash in our waterways!  It has been labeled an invasive species, because it kind of takes over the spots where it lands. If European Frog Bit breaks, new roots form from its broken pieces.  It doesn’t send roots down into the soil of a riverbed or pond; the roots float in a mat, which leaves the plant free to move and spread wherever it can.  Now you will find it in the Raquette River and the St. Lawrence Seaway, in ditches in Vermont and Michigan, and even growing in some of the Great Lakes!

Kingdom people adorn the darkest spaces and the edges of places.  They can grow and thrive in spiritually murky spots because they don’t get their nutrients from the earth; they aren’t rooted there. They know the secret of being content in any and every situation. Kingdom people are interdependent, rooted together in community, floating freely in living water.  We can grow anywhere God wants us, and we grow stronger when we’re broken!

Beverly