Blooming

 



A fat yellow bud is dangling on one of the daffodils.  It is in a spot where it should be the last to bloom as it's facing due north and is in shade.  But no... it's getting ready to burst forth in joyfulness, not at all caring that it is far and ahead of the other daffodils who only this week sent up stems with gently swelling heads as they basked in the sun.  Watching it there in that spot, in that shaded, cold place that rarely gets sun, makes me wonder why I have struggled so with blooming where I am.

We went to the mountains on vacation about two years ago.  While we were weaving our way around a stony old mountain face, I spied a wildflower growing out of the face of the rock.  Just that one flower, right smack in the middle of heaven knows how many tons of granite.  How that seed lodged there and found enough nutrient to bloom is only God's knowledge because it is beyond mine.  That was the vacation I spent weeping and moaning and being angry about how disappointed I was to find myself in this place in my life. 

 My growing conditions are hardly difficult. I have a decent home and have been blessed to make it as beautiful and lovely as I might with my limitations.  I have a loving husband and altogether a happy abiding place.  And I'll grant you I'm about 90 times happier where I am today but two years ago?  In this exact same place?  Grumble, grouse, weep and gnash teeth, complain, complain, complain.

What changed?  I decided to bloom where I'm planted.  I was always waiting for the next move, a move that hasn't come in 20 years and from all appearances may never come.   I'm not sure why I was so certain that this was not a forever place.

That flower brought me up short and it made me determined to find my own way to get my roots down into where I am and bloom for all I was worth despite the disappointments and losses and hurts.  It made me determined to make my house a home and to stop treating it like a temporary lodging place, putting off doing those things that would make my soul sing simply because I might move off and leave them one day.  Like planting daffodils...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Valuable Thing

It had been a hard week.  I was weary and wanted to be anywhere but miles away from home, late in the day, yet there I was.  As we drove through the grocery store parking lot, we noted a van in one space and on the opposite side of the road a young man with an electric violin, amplifier, and FX box (that he could loop music through).  He had placed a sign on the grassy verge.  I'd seen only enough of the sign to know he was asking for help of some sort.    We watched as children tumbled from the van and saw the man wave them back with his bow. As we sat in the pharmacy drive thru, I let the car window down a little.  At that moment the violinist began to play.  Music wafted around us on the breeze. The music was beautiful and ethereal.   I didn't recognize the piece and wondered if it was an original composition.  Whoever composed it, the music was lovely and soothing and soared in the cold air, seeming to become part of the ch...
Read more

As God Sees Her

      I was prepared to worship.  I'd taken time before synagogue to study the Torah, Prophet, and New Testament readings for the week.  I'd been in prayer all the previous day about the service, praying that it would be a blessing to us, to everyone who came to service. The first thing I noticed that morning was the scant crowd.  It's not a huge synagogue but generally the room was filled.  Not this week. Then someone said the Rabbi was not there and the alternate music leader was ill with strep throat.  She was telling another person that she had put together a worship program using CDs and had asked the Davidic dance team to perform.   I was disappointed.  It had been a long time since I'd tried to worship with 'canned' music, and I'd never really seen the dance team perform as they usually stepped into a side room which wasn't easily viewed.  I tried hard to bite back the deep disappointment that I felt. John join...
Read more

On Bread and Children

Image
  I noted something the other day, as I was making bread.  I follow the same recipe I have now been using for years.  Each time I measure out the sugar, the yeast, the water, the flour, the oil, the salt.  In breadmaking I don't guesstimate. I might guess when making biscuits or cornbread or muffins or pancakes, but with bread, I take care.  I measure.  I mix it in the exact same way every single time.  I use the very same cycles on my bread machine.  I time the last rising of the bread and heat my oven to the very same temperature and when I place that bread pan in the oven, I time it the same number of minutes that I've learned it requires in my oven. I do make mistakes at times, but I can pretty well tell you when a loaf fails why it has failed and what I missed.  But there are other times when the dough is just not right without any mistake at all being made.  Why?  Same amount of yeast, sugar, water, flour, salt and oil.  ...
Read more