Morning surprise

A couple of months ago, my neighbor gave me some bulbs and plants for my sad, sad flower beds. I planted most of what she gave me, but I had run out of room before I was done. So, on my back patio sat a Styrofoam minnow bucket full of bulbs. I would look at the bucket each morning as I enjoyed a little quiet time with my husband, and I would think I really need to plant those. But I would pan the yard, trying to find just the right place for them and come up with nothing. So they waited--my bucket of neglected bulbs--unwater, unplanted, unrooted.


This is what I saw when I got up yesterday morning:

Yep, right there, in the most unlikely of places, were these captivating flowers. And I cannot tell you the joy they brought me, because, like these bulbs, I have felt very unearthed and honestly a little forgotten by God. Like He put me aside for a while because there was no perfect place for me to be planted. So I have been waiting. Waiting to be watered. Waiting to feel my roots thriving in the soil. Waiting to feel like I belong to something again. But as we all know, life is rarely measured out to us in comfort and security--many times our conditions are rough, and our resources are sparse.

Today, though, I have a new perspective because of these little metaphors ablaze on my porch. Maybe everything I need in order to thrive has been in me before I was ever uprooted. Maybe I am not forgotten after all. Would it be so crazy to think that even in my seeming displacement, I could (and should) stop waiting and start bringing a little joy and beauty into someone else's life? So today, instead of wishing for a garden of rich soil and soft, sweet rain, I think I will just . . . bloom.