*Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago and planned on posting pictures, and couldn't pull it off. So, here are the words. Which is why I started blogging anyway…I'm a words kinda gal. Blessings!
We got SLAMMED! We knew it was coming. We even had family members warning us and giving us tips. I filled up the gas tank and then sort of waited. It was horrific! We have a small house that is parked right next to a green space full of TREES! I haven't been so very frightened in so long. Most anyone you talk to would tell you the same story. They just laid there, listening, waiting for the time when the tree comes through the roof. I do know of one family that was SPARED as a tree fell into their bedroom, onto their bed…while she was in it. How were they spared? She WALKED AWAY! Grace. We lost an Oak tree. That was very sad and insanely scary as we heard it fall. I was so thankful when dawn broke. It revealed what had broken, but we were able to enjoy the light! Our street is still waiting for the debris to be cleaned up. Some folks have more than others, but I have been absolutely amazed at some of the trees.
We live on an older street. We have dogwoods that stretch their beautiful arms high and wide. We have a wide variety of vegetation and many flowering trees. Every morning as Sonny and I make our way up the hill I walk by these trees and a few of them surprise me. When they first went down some of them had buds. At least I thought maybe they had buds. Now, as I start my day up that hill I am noticing that some of them are not only budding, but it's like they are going to flower! These are the trees that are laying on the side of the road waiting to be picked up. They were bent, broken, and were hauled to the road…debris. Then they have the audacity to blossom!
I wish I had that sort of audacity. It's like a stubborn hope. Do they know where they are? Do they know that they are waiting to be collected and destroyed? And yet they bloom?
This has been mulling around in my mind for a few days and today I thought of my time in college. One of my friends had a "bloom where you are planted" picture hanging in her room. I don't think we ever joked, but there were times that we said that we shouldn't settle for just being where we are. Like, we shouldn't remain status quo. Think what you want, but today I thought, "Bloom where you are broken." Those trees are stubbornly rocking on. They have been designed to do something and even in their broken state, they are doing it.
I am all too aware of my broken state. Spending all day every day with my children reveals way more than I care to mention. Even my children are beginning to see their broken states. It's difficult to receive the grace that is ours…or rather, believe that there is grace enough for the journey. Sometimes I'm afraid that if I don't get a long enough night the mercies won't be new. Silly, but sometimes true. Like there has to be some sort of time gap for God's mercies to have time to reboot…or charge up like he's some iPod or cell phone that can't remain charged. His mercies are new every morning.
Most of us are all too aware of our state. We aren't ignorant like the trees. But, can't we learn something from them? That we would have the audacity to flower! The stubborn hope that would cause us to continue doing what we were made to do despite our brokenness.
I don't know about you, but that excites me. The idea that wherever my brokenness makes itself known, God can cause me to bloom. Won't that be something for the world to see? A bunch of broken, messy folks, to bloom…bursting wide open with hope that the world is craving. So, go head…bloom…right where you are broken.
