Blooming in the Rubble

The startling thing about wildflowers is that they bloom with no one tending them but God. It is a good thing too, because I am terrible at keeping even the heartiest of houseplants alive. Yes, even cacti have succumbed to my floral ineptitude. But every Spring, no matter what I do or don’t do, the forest floor around our home is blanketed with wildflowers.

Something that is both frustrating and endearing about wildflowers is that they are not carefully staged. They just bloom. Up through the rubble of the forest floor, through sticks and pinecones and around scraggly stumps they thrive.

As a photographer, this is very frustrating. I want to see the flowers in their full splendor, showcased by pleasing backgrounds and shimmering sunlight. But they simply grow, anywhere and everywhere and the most delightful blooms are sometimes found in the most unattractive settings. While my photographer heart despairs, as a child of God, their disorganized beauty fills my soul.

We are like them, my friend.

Just like the spring beauties, pine lilies, and trillium. Though our Creator no longer works within the carefully tended borders of Eden, still we grow. Though some of us have not had the soil tenderly cultivated around us, though some find themselves in rocky places, surrounded by a clutter of sticks, or perhaps in complete obscurity on a path that is rarely seen, we stretch up toward our Lord and do exactly what He designed us to do from the beginning of time. Despite the pain and the sin and the trouble that can press a tender human soul, we bloom.

You are just like your Lord’s wildflowers my friend. Despite it all, you can still bloom. Bloom, little soul, bloom and share in His splendor.

2 Corinthians 4:7-9–“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”