As we found our way to our seats, nervous energy wound its way around in my stomach. What songs would we sing? What would I hear in the message preached? Ultimately, I wondered if my heart would welcome this new experience in church after such a long hiatus. The pastor asked that we stand and worship God as one. My husband and I stood. Holding hands, we looked to the stage, singing the lyrics to an old Christmas hymn, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee.”
We sang this well-known hymn, and my mind focused on the lyric, “Hearts unfold like flowers before You,/Op’ning to the sun above.”
My mind was drawn toward this line because flowers are such a delicate part of creation, beautifully depicting colors and designs only God could dream. Flowers unfold in the sun’s good, filling, and sustaining light. But flowers are the payoff of a lot of difficult, underground work. After all, flowers are the aftermath of a huge transition that transpires beneath the soil, in total pitch black earth. Have you thought about that? The darkness is where the majority of the work happens. We don’t get to see the beautiful, clandestine metamorphosis of the fledgling seed morphing into what will be a colorful wild flower.
Regardless, when gardeners plant bulbs under the dirt, they wait expectantly. Gardeners expect shoots to sprout from the well-watered earth. Bulbs planted in the winter months lie dormant through the cold, waiting for the sun to bring warmth and light. Although the spring is beautiful, the winter waiting can be long.
In order for a bulb to bloom in the spring, it must survive the darkness for quite some time.
In the meantime, it’s been awhile (have you noticed?) since I’ve opened up my computer to write. When you’ve been away from something for so long, the mental task of starting over again is daunting. You fear the talent cultivated over years has dwindled away to nothing.
Maybe the dark earth I felt stranded under hadn’t produced anything. Maybe I was the exception to the rule that all seeds that get buried resurrect as beautiful, resilient flowers.
Perhaps you’ve felt this way too.
Writing always felt therapeutic and wonderful. But the deep depression I had experienced kept my head underground for far longer than I could mentally sustain. My hands had lost the passion for writing or even journaling. I didn’t have the heart anymore to find God’s metaphors in my everyday life. My mind was a wreck of thoughts stuck in the past. What was the point of writing when everything felt dark, pointless, and hopeless?
When a seed goes under the earth, I wonder if it peers at the bright sun questioning if it will see the light of day again. That’s definitely how I felt.
A heart unfolding like a new spring flower sounds like a very slow, meticulous process. A process of waiting and trusting that as flowers open, the sun will provide the light for the nutrition they need. After breaking through the shell of seed, the fragile sprout starts to form just below the surface. This sprout grows and grows, prying back soil to reach the light at the surface. And as it emerges, this sprouting flower trusts that she will be given all that’s required to thrive in life above ground. Water, sunlight, shelter from predators and storms.
In this same way, my breaking out of depression had been a long process of tearing down shame, perfectionism, self-sufficiency and re-building something new and good.
After the longest winter of my life, I was breaking through like a tiny, green shoot. Finding my own strength just above the darkness. My face towards the sustainer of life, God was building me up from under the earth. Below ground, doubts, fears, and intrusive thoughts were my existence. I could not see the light and therefore thought the light had left me. But with just enough encouragement, I was welcomed onto the actual, sturdy, unshakeable ground. Jesus was the powerful ground where I found hope again.
Flowers may think they get planted as seeds and then miraculously shoot up from the ground without any care from the person who planted them. But looking back and seeing the journey I have been through, I know the master Gardener himself was tending to my every need along the way. There was no step left undone and no grief left unturned. Every crooked road was made straight. This good God was building me into a strong vessel.
And now here we are. Spring right around the corner. The last of Winter thawing each day as we move closer to the beginning of a new season.
As we enter Spring, it has been my honest joy to show my sons the morning light peering over the tops of trees, to witness the new buds on trees blooming, and to enjoy the outdoors, playing until our hearts’ content in the warm sunshine.
Dear friend, if you have experienced some winter darkness, I hope that this would be a new season of breakthrough. Turn your face from the darkness and trust that the light is coming. If the darkness just seemed too dark at the time, I hope that you can see the light just above the horizon.
May our hearts sing this melodious tune together: “Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;/Drive the dark of doubt away;/Giver of immortal gladness,/Fill us with the light of day!”
Beautiful flowers of the field, how much more does our God care about us? Let us renew our hope in God and reconstruct our strength in light as we let our thoughts dwell on a good God that loves us into burgeoning completion.
Let’s Pray
Dear Heavenly Father,
I confess that the darkness seemed to overshadow your goodness. I felt forgotten and left on my own. But just as you dress the Lillies of the field, I know that you care so much more for me.
Thank you for finding me in the darkness and building my strength in the valley. Sinking sand does not build unshakeable faith. This kind of faith is built in the depths of sorrow, pain, and grief. Lord, thank you for the faith you have given me, “…pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into [my] lap…” (Luke 6:38).
As I move forward, I pray to walk daily with you, not running too far ahead. I pray to rest in your heavenly light, admiring the goodness you give. You know just how delicate our flower hearts can be. And you love us perfectly, giving us exactly what we need as we need it.
In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.
