Bloom Where you Are Planted

Last month I was asked to write an article for our Monthly Women's Ministry Newsletter called Footnotes.  The theme was "Bloom Where you are Planted"...  I wanted to link the newsletter here.  My good friend Sarah also has an article in it.  It's well worth reading through.

Here was my portion...and what God taught me.

Firm Foundation

“Bloom where you are planted” was a small sign my Mom had hanging in our kitchen window growing up.  I read it a million times but it wasn’t until recently that I grew to understand it in a new way.

This past month it was determined that it was time for me to have a partial hysterectomy, something I knew was coming, but had been waiting for the “perfect” time to have the surgery.  When, as a mother of 4 busy boys, is the perfect time for Mom to be down and out for 3-6 weeks?  Never I thought!   But it was clearly time and I couldn’t make it be perfect.  It was time to just Bloom where I was planted and trust God’s timing. 

The older I get the more I learn that sometimes God calls us to be “servers” and sometimes he calls us to “BE SERVED”.  I would prefer to always be on the serving end.  It’s my comfort zone.  You need a meal, a gallon of milk, a child cared for…call me, I am your girl.  But this past month as I recovered from surgery, it was time to allow others to bring meals, run the boys to their functions, take our busy 3 year old for the day, allow my husband to be in charge of the laundry, the grocery shopping…the details.

It was NOT easy for me to let go.  This is a typical conversation I have with God.  “Okay God, I can cover this and that, and why don’t you do that part that I cannot. “  I think as Mom’s, if we are honest, we often have that conversation.   We are good at delegating, at list making…I know I am.  But God wanted me to learn a few more things.  One of his big lessons for me was to “Bloom Where I am planted” BY GOD at that time.

I over-did it the first week, feeling like I was Super Mom and I wasn’t going to let a “little” surgery get me down.  I made my lists for me, for my husband, for my Mom who was here helping and for God.  God HALTED me in my tracks by completely wearing my body down and needing a full 36 hours back in bed.  It was time to be still.  It was God fully showing His role as my Father and that HE indeed has it ALL under control.  He doesn’t need my lists.  I need His.

We all have seasons in our lives where we need to be content in where God has us planted, whether that’s a move to a new city, a change in jobs, a loss of a family member or friend…or even a surgery.  “Bloom where you are planted” can mean so many different things.  For me it meant a time to let go and Let God show me how the Body of Christ is perfectly designed to love and care for us AND our families when we allow them to.  To be reminded that my IDENTITY is in Christ not in my being a Mom, a wife and a doer.  Gulp, yes it is not all about me.

 “For I know the plans I have for you, “declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11

Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there.  God has a plan for us all.  Sometimes it may take Him to physically stop us with a surgery, and tenderly hold our face and remind us that HE has it under control.  That we are to submit to Him and His word and bloom in His garden the way HE has planned.