You Were Made To Flourish
I would be such a good gardener. I’ll take any excuse to soak up the warm sunshine. I don’t even mind the watering. I would be such a great gardener if I could only manage to keep my plants alive. I’ve tried different types in different seasons, potted plants, flowers, vegetables, herbs, even succulents, and somehow even those manage to wilt despite my best efforts.
The other day I went to water a small, lovely cactus I bought a couple weeks back that sits on our bedroom dresser. Before I started pouring the water into the white ceramic pot I noticed something strange about the dirt. The texture seemed…spongey. I pressed my finger down into the “soil” to discover that I was about to water a fake cactus.
This spring I am bright eyed and determined to master the technique of a good gardener. My wilting shrubs will flourish simply because I am willing it so hard. But I have found that in seasons of unfavorable conditions, be it weather or personal, my tendency is to resort to fake plants. They are low maintenance, look great on my shelves, and something even I can’t kill. They check off every box, except for one. They don’t grow.
I tend to find myself in seasons of life where I can’t seem to do enough to stay vibrant and truly alive and I get weary of the process. Here we go again, I think to myself. Another season of drought or another cold, wet winter leaving me cooped up with my own dark thoughts. It feels easier, smarter even, to bypass the cycles essential for growth and instead replace my soil with a spongey, artificial look-alike. If flowers can’t flourish all year long, then maybe I don’t want to be a flower. If I have to go through seasons of death and burial and rebirth just to feel alive, maybe I can find a convincing alternative.
I think I struggle so much with being a good gardener for the same reasons I struggle with my own growth. I always start off strong, motivated to make something beautiful and worth beholding. I set my goals and plant my seeds. But I get weary in the process. I want to bear fruit immediately. I want to be able to hit post on my first blog and have my inbox flooded with notes of how much the world needed to hear my words. I want to sign up for a marathon in the Fall, run once, and be ready to slay the race. I want to wake up in the morning with a full dose of patience for my two boys and immediately reap the benefits of being world’s best mom. My problem is that no matter how many times I try, my roots remain shallow at best, unable to withstand life’s storms.
We were made to flourish, because at our core, we were created to be life-givers.
Today believers all around the world are celebrating Good Friday. The day Christ hung for the sins of the masses and was placed in a grave. When I was doing some research on the life cycle of plants, I came across something interesting—
“When a seed comes to rest in conditions [favorable for growth] it breaks open and the embryo inside starts to grow.”
Then it finally hit me. Christ is the seed that takes root. He was buried so that we could flourish.
He knew no matter how many attempts we took at self growth, we’d never be able to dig our roots down deep enough to produce something sustaining. What an incredibly beautiful picture of how nature works.
If Christ is the root, then we are the leaves. Our job is to “capture sunlight” and make food through photosynthesis. If you haven’t taken fifth grade science in a while, photosynthesis is the process of taking this sunlight and converting it to oxygen. In other words, when we look to the sun, we give breath to the things around us. We were made to flourish, because at our core, we were created to be life-givers.
Things have been…unideal in our world lately. Conditions have not been entirely favorable. News headlines highlight the mass suffering taking place from COVID-19. It’s safe to say that our world is not exactly flourishing at the moment. Perhaps we are in a season of death and rebirth, much like nature during the winter months. Maybe we are being pruned of our branches so we can yield a greater harvest. Regardless of the cause or the season, I hope you find solace in this truth: Christ was buried so you could flourish. When you are tempted to trade your withering petals for an artificial replacement, remember that God is a God of life, not death. And the heartache we feel today will soon be replaced with a cry of victory and celebration. He is alive and real and by His grace, so are we.
♥Alyssa