I thought it was dead, this seed I sowed with so much hope.
Having been burned by last year’s crop and its failure to thrive, I’d sworn I wouldn’t touch the garden again. My heart couldn’t take the disappointment.
And yet, as spring rolled closer to summer, I couldn’t help myself. Everything looked so bleak; wouldn’t it be nice to see some colour in the garden, if only for a while?
So, with faith the size of the seed in my hand, I sowed it in the biggest pot I could find, and waited.
The first fruits were promising, a green shoot began to grow and then another, and as the temperature rose, my shoot shot up along with my hope. Next some leaves appeared and then the start of a shapely sunflower head, which got bigger and bigger until…
It stopped.
July came and went. August too. Weeds sprung up around it and the garden returned to its formerly grim state. By the time September crawled to a close, my hope was long gone and I sighed as I surveyed the sorry sight. Another fruitless year.
It took me by surprise then, when one dreary Monday October morning, there she was, this flash of yellow. I could hardly believe it blinking the sleep from my eyes before hurrying to work. Was she truly blooming? Really? Even now?
Friends confirmed it as they sent me pictures and videos of her swaying slightly in the breeze. Have you seen her? Isn’t she beautiful?
Perhaps encouraged by the attention, she grew brighter and brighter and I smiled every time I looked out the window to see this brilliant pop of colour, even as the temperature dropped and the clouds rolled in thick.
I thought she was dead.
I thought it was too late for her to bloom.
I thought wrong.
***
Sometimes a flower is a flower and sometimes a flower is a metaphor for life.
You see, my green fingered experiments these last few years were so much more than a hobby, they were a defiant attempt to encourage myself that even when other parts of life felt bleak, beauty could still spring up.
It was even more gutting then to pour my heart, time and money into them, only to watch them be overtaken by mildew and pests and shrivel up and die, month after month.
Was this me? Was this my life? Why was I failing to thrive?
I looked around at other people's lives, ‘gardens’ with more growth than mine and felt the fear begin to rise; “I’m behind, everyone else’s life is moving on and mine is still the same. I’ve missed out. I'm getting older. It's too late. I really thought the Lord had something specific for me, but maybe I was wrong.”
Maybe I was wrong, or maybe..
Maybe, my timeline is just different to everyone else’s. Not behind, not wrong, just different.
***
The Bible says there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to plant and a time to uproot.
So often I assume I know what that time is. I go by what makes sense in the natural. Flowers planted in spring should bloom in the summer when it’s sunny and warm right? I’m nearly 32, my life should look a certain way, right?
But in entertaining these thoughts I deny the supernatural nature of my God, the One who makes rivers in the desert, who opens the wombs of women well past child bearing age, who raises dead people back to life. His kingdom defies what's normal and natural and conceivably possible.
And His timing is not my timing. It’s not bad, it’s not wrong, it’s just different.
Maybe you think your dream is dead, that flourishing will happen for everyone but you.
Maybe you fear you've missed your time to bloom, that it’s too late for you now.
Or maybe, just maybe, He's waiting to surprise you with goodness when you least expect it. It’s possible, that even now there are little sprouts under the ground, yet unseen coming to life.
The fruit of our lives has a time and a season, and that time and season is unique to each of us. Your flourshing may not coincide with anyone elses, and that's ok. He will call it forth in your life when it is most fitting and ripe and when it's most glorifying to Him.
The wait may feel long and the timing may defy what makes sense, but when it blooms, which it will, it will do so to the wonder of a watching world.
Like a sunflower in October.