Desert Blossoms
The turkey is gobbled up, the pie pans cleaned, and the thanksgiving decorations thrown out to be replaced by Christmas trees and Santa figurines. Christmastime is upon us, but for some reason I can't move past Thanksgiving.
It's partly because I think Thanksgiving gets ripped off, like everyone skips over it as quickly as possible to get to Christmas. It's also partly because I think of thanksgiving not as a special holiday but as an everyday attitude. It's also partly (and mainly) because my heart has been overwhelmed by thanksgiving every since I finished my second year-long term in Burkina and came back to the United States with a breathtaking recognition of just how much God has done this year. This past year has been wonderful, painful, victorious, challenging, exciting, and difficult all at the same time, but if I could sum up the state of my wild heart at this moment, it would be one very solid word.
Thankful.
The thing I am most thankful for during this season in my life of thanks giving might seem a little unusual, but it is also the truest. I am thankful for blossoms in the desert.
Isaiah 35:1-2 says,
"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing."
It's not your average flower that can "blossom abundantly" in the desert. In a garden or by streams of water, certainly. But the dessert? I don't know what a crocus is, but I want to be one. I picture this dry, desolate, crusty old desert with a uniquely beautiful little flower, a perfect combination of delicateness and strength, of resilience and weakness. A flower that could only grow there with the tender loving care of a gardener who wouldn't let it wither when all elements worked against it.
My last year has been something like that. Sometimes I literally feel like I'm living in a desert when the heat and dryness and hunger and poverty surround and overwhelm me. I'm just a little flower, trying to grow and be beautiful and share beauty and point to Beauty for those who happen to pass by. I hope and pray that they catch a whiff of the sweet aroma, and that they know it is Christ who is the source of all life and goodness.
This year has also been a desert of difficulties - one hard thing after another, one spiritual attack after another. At the end of all that, I see that I have flourished when I logically should have withered, and it is only because of my gardener's faithful kindness that I thrived. His tender loving care has caused me to "blossom abundantly" despite the harsh elements of the desert. (Or should I say because of the harsh elements of the desert?) His steadfast love has sustained me and given me a strength that certainly didn't come from within myself. The kind of strength it takes to blossom abundantly in the desert can undeniably only come from one source: the Living Water, the Word of Life, the Vine, the Gardener, the Good Shepherd, the Strong One.
Oh Father, thank you for the desert. And thank you for what blossoms abundantly out of it.
"I am like a green olive tree..." Psalm 52:8 says. Why? I love what the psalm writer concluded. Because "I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever."
In the desert difficulties of this season of our lives, whatever those may be, we have the hope of a steadfast love that we can trust forever and ever. His name is Jesus Christ, and his tender loving care will make us blossom abundantly and unexpectedly in the desert. In the wilderness, his faithfulness will make us flourish. His steadfast love sustains so that...
"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing."
The desert becomes the ground of thanksgiving, the foundation on which our hearts' gratitude is set. We rejoice with joy and singing in the wilderness because we trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. Then that makes our little flower's beauty even more brilliant.
It's partly because I think Thanksgiving gets ripped off, like everyone skips over it as quickly as possible to get to Christmas. It's also partly because I think of thanksgiving not as a special holiday but as an everyday attitude. It's also partly (and mainly) because my heart has been overwhelmed by thanksgiving every since I finished my second year-long term in Burkina and came back to the United States with a breathtaking recognition of just how much God has done this year. This past year has been wonderful, painful, victorious, challenging, exciting, and difficult all at the same time, but if I could sum up the state of my wild heart at this moment, it would be one very solid word.
Thankful.
The thing I am most thankful for during this season in my life of thanks giving might seem a little unusual, but it is also the truest. I am thankful for blossoms in the desert.
Isaiah 35:1-2 says,
"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing."
It's not your average flower that can "blossom abundantly" in the desert. In a garden or by streams of water, certainly. But the dessert? I don't know what a crocus is, but I want to be one. I picture this dry, desolate, crusty old desert with a uniquely beautiful little flower, a perfect combination of delicateness and strength, of resilience and weakness. A flower that could only grow there with the tender loving care of a gardener who wouldn't let it wither when all elements worked against it.
My last year has been something like that. Sometimes I literally feel like I'm living in a desert when the heat and dryness and hunger and poverty surround and overwhelm me. I'm just a little flower, trying to grow and be beautiful and share beauty and point to Beauty for those who happen to pass by. I hope and pray that they catch a whiff of the sweet aroma, and that they know it is Christ who is the source of all life and goodness.
This year has also been a desert of difficulties - one hard thing after another, one spiritual attack after another. At the end of all that, I see that I have flourished when I logically should have withered, and it is only because of my gardener's faithful kindness that I thrived. His tender loving care has caused me to "blossom abundantly" despite the harsh elements of the desert. (Or should I say because of the harsh elements of the desert?) His steadfast love has sustained me and given me a strength that certainly didn't come from within myself. The kind of strength it takes to blossom abundantly in the desert can undeniably only come from one source: the Living Water, the Word of Life, the Vine, the Gardener, the Good Shepherd, the Strong One.
Oh Father, thank you for the desert. And thank you for what blossoms abundantly out of it.
"I am like a green olive tree..." Psalm 52:8 says. Why? I love what the psalm writer concluded. Because "I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever."
In the desert difficulties of this season of our lives, whatever those may be, we have the hope of a steadfast love that we can trust forever and ever. His name is Jesus Christ, and his tender loving care will make us blossom abundantly and unexpectedly in the desert. In the wilderness, his faithfulness will make us flourish. His steadfast love sustains so that...
"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing."
The desert becomes the ground of thanksgiving, the foundation on which our hearts' gratitude is set. We rejoice with joy and singing in the wilderness because we trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. Then that makes our little flower's beauty even more brilliant.
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