I started a process of emotional healing back in March of this year. It wasn't a journey I planned to take. It wasn't even a journey I knew I needed to take until the month before. But I did.
Healing from deep trauma wounds isn't easy healing. It's a little like the process of healing from deep burns. Sometimes you have to scrape away the damaged skin to expose the skin underneath that is living and healthy. So that the new healthy skin can begin to grow. That's a painful process. Excruciating really. One that takes time. And tears. And sometimes a lot of cussing. And it takes people to support you during the process.
I was fortunate to have a very wise guide along my way to healing. And early on in this process, when I was in so much pain from all the scraping of the dead and diseased, to get to the healthy underneath, she gave me some guidance. She told me that I should think of something extraordinarily kind that I could do for myself. Something that would serve as a balm to my broken heart until it began to heal.
She gave me this advice the week before Easter. That's a week that is always difficult for me. Easter usually falls around the time that my dad died. And Good Friday was always a day that I helped my dad plant a vegetable garden. I sometimes still plant a vegetable garden on that day, as a way of remembering and honoring my dad. I briefly considered that this year. But part of the scraping and the exposing that had caused my heart to be so broken involved dealing with issues with my dad's death. They involved finally really saying goodbye to him in the way that I should have 24 years before. And so planting a vegetable garden didn't feel quite right.
But after some thought, I realized that planting flowers did. I love flowers. Love them. But I can't grow them, or really any other green plant. I just don't have the gift of gardening. So I picked something that would be easy to grow and even I could manage to not kill. I chose morning glory vines. I've always liked morning glories. I like the surprise of walking out each morning and seeing which ones decided to bloom today. So I bought planters that I could place on my porch railing so they would greet me each morning as I left for work, and that would remind me of their need to be watered. And I bought soil, and I bought seeds. And in a last minute decision to start a new tradition, I asked Clayton to help me to plant the flower seeds, the way that my dad had once had me help him with his vegetables.
And then I waited. I watered the soil. And I watched for buds to appear and wondered if I had taken the steps that I needed to take to guarantee the seeds would turn into plants as they should. And while I waited, God worked his magic on those seeds, out of my sight, even when I wasn't aware of it. Much like what he was doing in my life with my continued healing.
In time, green buds began to appear. And then the plants begin to vine. And before too long, as the sun grew warm, and the days long, flowers began to bloom. And as the plants grew, and the flowers bloomed more, my healing continued. As the flowers bloomed, so did I.
As summer got really hot, and rain was scarce, the plants began to look a little less green. The blooming stopped. Regular watering kept the plants alive, but they weren't as vibrant as they were when they were first planted. But in the last two weeks, I have noticed, as the temperatures have gotten cooler, that they have begun to bloom again. Not all the surrounding plant looks as healthy as the flowers. There are leaves that are dry, or burned, or brown. But despite the condition of some of the plant, the flowers continue to bloom. And the plants continue to grow, And the vines continue to stretch to cover new areas of the trellis and the porch railings on which they grow. And each morning when I walk out onto my porch, I am greeted with new blooms. Blooms different than those of the day before. Promises from God that are new each morning. Through the summer I too continued to heal. I continued to grow. And some parts of me, like with those plants, aren't as pretty and green as others. Some are dying away, to make room for new life, as with the plants. But despite those parts that are dying, new parts are coming to life and continuing to grow.
I filled four planters with flower seeds back in March. While they have all grown and vined, only two of them have regularly bloomed. The third has bloomed once or twice and the fourth not at all. The plants have grown bigger. The vines have continued to grow and lengthen and strengthen. But no flowers. I think sometimes flowers may be a little like people. Some take a little longer to bloom.
I planted these flowers back in March as a way to be kind to myself. I didn't know the lessons that they would teach me along the way. The journey that they would chronicle. The joy that they would bring to me. Life is like that, I think. Sometimes we plant small seeds, for ourselves, or for others, for a very limited purpose. And God uses that act of love on our part to grow so much more than we could ever imagine.
He makes all things new. And he brings beautiful things out of the dust.
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