As I sat in a McDonald's drive thru, I noticed a pretty yellow tulip blooming all alone. It had been planted next to a very ugly pipe and really seemed out of place in that empty landscape. Yet it bloomed. With its God design built into it, the tulip continued to grow and flower even when the area around it look dead and ugly.
I continue to struggle against God in 'blooming' where He has put me. I really don't want to embrace the life of limitations! Yet here I am: Don't lift anything over 10 pounds; don't fall; don't run; don't drive; don't drink coffee (yeah...this one really hurts!); don't sit too long; don't stand too long...and on it seems to go. And after looking over that list, I just wish I had a sarcasm font! Seriously?!? When just a year ago I was hauling sod and chasing grandkids everywhere?
I feel just as out of place as that tulip. I am not used to being limited. I have things I would really, really like to do. I have things I put off to do later...and now I will never be able to do them. I grieve over what I have lost!
But, unlike the flower, I have a choice: to bloom or not to bloom. And the God designed joy within me say BLOOM! So I CHOOSE to spend the rest of the day growing within my limitations. I CHOOSE to look at the blessing of being alive and still able to see what I am typing, type what I am thinking! I know I'm not the one in control...and I relax into that thought. I am free to wonder how God will use me to bless others. Free to do the work He planned for me to do before the world was created. Limitations? What limitations!??! I live in Christ! And that is a beautiful life beyond imagination!
What a God I serve that can use the ugly to show how beautiful things really are!!
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (New International Version)
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 comments:
You bloom...believe it.
You are the flower. I am a pipe. Stand by me!
Terry, You are definately not the pipe! I watch you bloom and create blooms in other people...with EVERY word you say! Thank YOU, my friend, for showing me how to let Jesus shine in every moment! I stand with you.
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