Encouragement

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Ever look at a tulip bulb? It is hardly worth a description, brown skin, and very onion like with nothing to recommend it. The gardener digs a hole in the barely thawed earth and buries it with dirt where it sits for weeks unnoticed by the casual observer.

But the gardener knows its there and will water it and care for it, and deep beneath the soil the bulb is changing, it is soaking in nutrients from the soil, it is sending out roots, it is coming alive. Hard to imagine that in the dirt, in the dark in the quietness of the earth that new life is formed, yet it is. Soon a young plant will push through the dirt to make its way to the sunlight; the harder it pushes the stronger the plant is. Once it is out beautiful deep green leaves soak up the rays of the sun until from deep within comes a light green bud. A couple of days later the light green bud changes color, it could be anything from deep dark purple to the palest shade of white. And it blooms a perfect blossom a testimony to the wonder of God.

The bulb is similar to us, there is nothing much to recommend us, we are not as glorious as a sunset, not as clever as an ant, not as beautiful as a flower nor as powerful as the wind. And yet our Creator takes the trouble to plant us, He knows exactly where we are supposed to be. He takes the time to dig in the dirt and to gently lay us there. Yes the earth is cold, the ground is hard, the darkness overwhelming and in the stillness we wonder if we are forgotten. We don’t feel the water that the Gardener is pouring over us, we can’t see the fertilizers that He has mixed in the soil, all we know is that we are there and it feels like we are forgotten.

But something is happening, in the darkness, in the stillness we are growing in the adversity. Soon we have the strength to push through that dirt that is holding us in, and the stronger the adversity the stronger we are as a person. When we break through the pain and the suffering to emerge into the warm sunlight there is great rejoicing for we have persevered. Still we grow, we pull from the dirt what we need in order to grow, and soon in His time we will bloom to bare witness to His glory.

Don’t think that you are forgotten when you are in the dirt, know that He is preparing you to bloom, know that the Gardener knows exactly where you are supposed to be and He is there caring for you as you make the journey from a bulb to a blossom.

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