In preparing for this week’s message, I keep running into this phrase: “Bloom where you are planted.” It’s a cutesy phrase, to be sure…but it also encourages some deeper reflection on what that might mean were we to really live out that concept.
Many of us have been uprooted. We live some distance from where we began our lives as infants and children. We may no longer live in our childhood homes. Or neighborhoods. Or cities. Or states. Or country. We have likely been transplanted, whether by our own choice or that of spouse or parents or children.
This cutesy little phrase challenges us to not just accept the soil we find ourselves in but to open up, to bloom and share our very selves in this new and uncertain environment. The scripture passage that led me to this phrase comes from a letter Jeremiah writes to those who are now in exile in Babylon…uprooted and transplanted:
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:4-7, NRSV)
I invite you to pray over and ponder this passage as we make our way to Sunday. Spend some time imagining what it would look like for you to bloom where you are planted, especially in your place of exile. As a newly planted and grafted church, how can we, collectively, bloom where we now find ourselves?
I’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections on this passage and idea of blooming. Please feel free comment below or email me (ygillar@gmail.com) …we grow together through our sharing and support of one another so water me with your wisdom!
this touched my soul. the first thought is that i have to wait upon the Master Gardener. i may be anxious to display my foliage, maybe i am even prideful in thinking i have the most glorious blooms ever seen ... but i lay fallow despite my anxiousness. it is not my time. the Gardener knows i need a time of fallowness to regenerate.
ReplyDeletei need to acclimate myself to the new environment. those which sprout forth the fastest are often weeds - maybe beautiful, like queen anne's lace - but weeds nonetheless. i don't want to be a weed.
i need time to grieve what i left and to "grok" my new community. how can i know the welfare of my new community until i have walked in it, encountered its people, and developed of sense of its values.
as i lay fallow, the Gardener is performing great works in me...i am developing strong roots, becoming grounded, and sucking in the nutrients of the rich, fertile, soil. the Gardener knows what feeds me and He provides abundantly!
and i trust the Gardener to provide for what I have left. and He does without fail. i returned to my childhood home ten years after moving to another part of the country. i was saddened. it seems so small, the beautiful yard was unkempt, the house was painted an ugly color, and it was so sad to see. another thirty years passed and i found myself again in my hometown. on the way to the airport i asked the driver to take me by my childhood home. it was a beautiful autumn day. as we made the familiar turn i saw gorgeous fall foliage framing our path. we drove slowly past the basset hound house and the baby sitter's house and then i saw it. tears came to my eyes. yes, it was repainted, reminiscent of years long ago. the porch look welcoming. the redbud had been trimmed to frame the kitchen window. the yard was trimmed. my heart lept for joy. it was well within my soul. and i continued to the airport, completing a trip of redemption and healing.
yes, revsis, we need to bloom where we are planted. we need to trust the Gardener to plant other blooms in our wake, and remain faithful that all blooms burst forth in beauty in His perfect time.