Always in bloom.
That’s what the purple shirt I bought yesterday says on it.
It felt fitting as I remember crying into my husband's arms a few nights prior, explaining the woes of what feels like a new chapter of change that feels as if it requires me to bend until I break.
“You will always change. Your entire life, over and over again” he said to me, in the most loving way. I could feel the fragrance of the Spirit on his lips as he broke through any false notion that remained within my heart that I could somehow escape the inevitable changes of what was to come.
A week ago, another new shirt appeared in my life.
It had butterflies on it, just like the purple one I bought myself.
Except this one was brought to me by a friend. It also had a phrase, written in small black ink, etched beneath the collage of butterflies.
“The old life is gone, a new life has begun.”
As a born-again believer, my life forever changed, once and for all, at salvation. I was dead, now I am alive. I was defeated, now I am victorious. I lived in rebellion, now I live in obedience. The phrase makes sense in relation to the Christian life.
But the more I thought about the timing of this shirt being given to me, and the little phrase beneath those butterflies, I realized that it speaks to the shifts I currently feel occurring in my life.
I am familiar with the shifting sands of change, as I’ve encountered them many times in my life; but familiarity does not make it more comfortable.
These shifts always require that I let go of what is old, and step into what is new.
There is always something to let go of and something to embrace.
I’ve had this constant, reverberating thought in my spirit lately that has gripped me: my belief systems are either shaped by God, or they are not.
This is a simple thought, and one that I have understood in some measure for years now.. But there is a fresh awareness blooming that has brought an invitation with it.
If I choose to stay stuck and stagnant in my mindsets, I will effectively cut off the work of the spirit in expanding my vision of what is and what is to come.
I never want to quench the spirit in my own life, and this can effectively happen when we get stuck in “the way things have always been.”
I want to consistently expand my surrender in each and every mindset I have previously held, so that the Holy Spirit will transform my mind in every way.
Not only will there be transformation, but there will be liberation.
The innocence and openness of a child is what I’m after. This is the way into the Kingdom after all, becoming like those little children who remain curiously open to every new experience they encounter.
Jesus renews and restores the mind, and in this season, the Spirit is dropping a pin on something very specific within this reality of renewal.
I find myself going throughout my day thinking of things as I often do, and then becoming arrested by the voice of the Spirit asking me: who said that though? or what made you believe that?
He is constantly challenging my ideas about life, myself, cultural cues, the church, my husband, the poor man begging on the street, the pace of life I live.. some big things, some small.
He is highlighting to me that so many of the ways I live my life are a result of the beliefs I hold- and many of them are not based on his voice, but rather on the voice of the many people who have influenced my life, or the culture around me, or simply the traditional way of things that is never questioned or challenged.
His voice is my favorite voice.
It is the most pure and true. It rings with justice and emits the fragrance of wisdom.
I hear his ways, his heart, his laws from the Word and from his Spirit within me, and I delight in these foundational ways to know it.
I also hear him from the t-shirt my friend brought to my house while I was cooking dinner, or the lips of my husband as he assures me life is not always what we believe it should be, or from my pastor as he prophetically encourages me.
The only way I’ve ever known it through them, is because I first knew it from him.
Allowing his powerful ways and illuminating thoughts to replace my meager ones is critical, as the change set before me requires that I let go of the old and step into the new.
I have always felt different.
I remember in high school not understanding how everyone could pick a future path so easily. Most of my peers knew their career choice (i.e. what felt like your “destiny” at this age), or they at least knew the college they would be going to.
I found it outrageous and extremely challenging to pick a path (or college) when I was just learning to get acquainted with my passions.
Yet, everyone I knew was doing just that, and I felt like the only one internally screaming “how do you KNOW?!”
I felt like whatever I picked now would be a blind guess on the game of life, and the result would be what felt like a trap to be tethered to one thing.
So I guessed again and again, exploring many different things. They all held passion, but none felt like purpose.
Until I believed I had found it- I found what I was destined for all along.
Living by the flesh, you choose your destiny. Living by the spirit, God chooses it.
My choice was merely a prophetic image of what my destiny was always meant to be.
It was littered with all the desires that were intrinsically in me: to see and know people in authenticity, to serve, to teach, to encourage, to admonish, to love, to expose what did not work to make way for what did.
It was not until I met Jesus and surrendered all my ideas of what I could be or should be that my destiny began to take shape as it was always meant to.
Every day on the journey with Jesus is a stepping stone, and each stone requires surrender.
There is no other way to follow Jesus in spirit and in truth.
Through that surrender, gradually, God has revealed parts of my destiny.
We don’t follow God to find our destiny.
God calls us to follow him and the life we then live results in our destiny.
Destiny is inevitably a central part of our existence in the Kingdom of God.
I was made to love Christ, and I was made to express that love through the means of which he chose for me, from the beginning of time.
He ordained my life steps and who I would need to be to walk them out.
His plan for my life has been mind-blowingly better than something I could have chosen for myself.
First, because my destiny is not contained by a career choice. He redeemed my whole life, not just my vocation, and that comes with abundance, peace, and joy that is incomparable and impossible to receive in any other way.
Secondly, because what he created me to do and who he created me to be are aligned with my intrinsic design. Anything we try to do outside of our core design will never feel completely fulfilling, because it does not align with what we were created for.
The fruit is beautiful, but the cultivation is often messy.
It is the idea of what I believed my life might look like, almost subconsciously held within me like a hidden locket with a photo inside of it, that has become the old thing I must now let go of.
This threshold I find myself at is an invitation to let go of all I have believed I must do, how I must show up, and what it looks like to complete my assignment in this life.
I feel many things slipping away that I once held great passion for.
I can feel my priorities shifting, my outlook changed, and my perspective of the life I am called to being challenged as I have suddenly realized the intensity of the unique life I am called to live.
There is a part of me that has always known the call of my life would be radical, mostly because when my heart is in something, I will give my all to it.
My heart drives me, and it was created to do so. My heart is captivated by the God of love, and that love drives me in all that I do.
Having an intrinsic design to “go all in” as one of my past mentors called it, comes with challenges to bend with the blowing of the wind.
This is where I find myself now: bending, or grappling, with who I once was, and who I am now becoming.
I must learn to continuously bend as the weeping willow to the wind, being shaped by the movement it brings.
Change always comes knocking and you must answer if you desire to move forward wholeheartedly.
There is a continuum of growth; you always take what you have learned from one season to the next. The wisdom you achieve in one season will surely follow you to the next. It stays within your spirit, as more building blocks of future growth stack upon it.
I may not look the same, or live in the same place, or even participate in the same activities I used to. I may not write the same, or read the same books, or hangout with the same people. I may have a completely different life than what I once did.
That is okay.
But something about the flesh is that it never wants to let go of what is gone.
I think this is because the flesh is a dead thing, and those things which we must leave behind have to become dead to us.
The spirit is open to what is new and alive, but the flesh desires to hold tight to what should be dead and gone.
Change requires courage, and my spirit says yes, but my flesh says no.
The flesh loves comfortability. It wants you to stay stuck in the mud, where even though you may be stuck, you can feel the comforting coolness around your feet. But God asks you to step into the sun, where it may be hot, but it will expose and burn away any fear you have of moving forth into what you were made for.
It is not a sin habit or something unhealthy I am struggling to leave behind, although there have been many of those on my journey of becoming.
It is simply the old way of doing things, because the grace has lifted.
The grace has fallen from them simply because God has destined something new, something different, something that requires me to make space for it.
God has asked me to leave behind good things, in pursuit of better things.
This is why the Holy Spirit has targeted my belief systems: because I have held specific beliefs about the way in which I would live out my calling.
These beliefs did not come from a place of error or pain, they were actually healthy and normal based on the season I had been in. They were submitted to God and made sense in that season, but they have to change now that the new season is here.
The hidden picture inside my internal locket was based on the limited visuals I have collected from God as my destiny has unfolded the past few years.
And now, as there have been some dramatic (i.e. unprecedented and new to me) shifts in the ways God has called me to live, serve, and love, I have felt a sense of grief in my spirit.
It took me a moment to pinpoint that it was grief.
Sometimes we think we will, and should be, only happy and excited about new mantles, fresh callings, and new thresholds, but there is often a mix of emotions as we step into something new.
God knows that, and he is not giving anyone gold stars for being more excited or emphatic about change than others.
He delights in the honest heart.
My commitment can be emphatic, while I also grapple with change.
My yes can be wholehearted, while I face the grief of letting go.
My tenacity to move forward can be strong in the Lord, while I feel weak and confused as to what’s next.
God holds it all, affirms our feelings, and carries us through on our deepest surrender.
There have been these mysterious green plants in my front yard.
They are right next to the pathway leading up to the door and they are the only form of green plants in our yard.
Last fall, and all through the winter, I would walk past this little circle of green stubs in the ground, knowing they had potential but unsure of what they would become.
I thought they may just be some sort of weeds.
But then a few weeks ago I saw they started to form buds! Ever since then I have been wondering what kind of flowers they would bloom into.
It has been exciting to wait and see, not knowing what will burst forth.
Today, I left the house as usual and there were no flowers outside my door.
But then, when I came back from the grocery store, I was greeted by the most beautiful, fiery red flowers that had exploded alive in all their glory.
These flowers are stunning.
I assumed those buds would become very simple flowers, but they are actually quite unique and extremely beautiful.
Yet, my initial expectations for them were quite low.
I am reminded that when change comes, my expectation for what is next tends to be quite low compared to what I believe I am leaving behind.
And yet, that is never the case.
God takes me from glory to glory, and when I embrace the inevitable change that leads me on the road of destiny, I am shocked by the unique beauty that awaits me.
Every time I must embrace change, I am like a fiery red flower, waiting to unfold into the fullness of who I was always destined to be.
Although the flowers of the earth will always come and go, as will the uncomfortable feelings that change brings up in us, the eternal impact of our lives will never fade away.
For this reason, I say yes again and again to each new threshold I find myself at, for the potter knows exactly what he is forming in his hands.
I am forever in bloom.