“Bloom where you are planted” - a tale of a fridge magnet and a rhododendron

“Bloom where you are planted” - so says a magnet on my fridge. I should say that I don’t generally base my life on the wisdom of fridge magnets! Some do indeed display extraordinary insight into what my life feels like (see “Chocolate is proof that God wants us to be happy”, and “Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today”, the latter complete with a cute picture of a puppy flopped down on the floor and looking bemused). But I do know the difference between cute/mildly amusing/cheesy on the one hand, and wisdom for life on the other.

However, “Bloom where you are planted” has something going for it. I can often feel fidgety, looking for something unspecific but which has a pull on me, a sense that if things were just a bit different in one way or the other, then life would be okay, would be sorted, and I could thrive and contribute much more fully. I have long given up on the notion that I might have a pristine and tidy house, that I will drop down a dress size, or that I will get all my filing done; and I know that browsing RightMove for a dream home and (perhaps more realistically) AirBnB for cosy self-catering cottages in remote places is really just a distraction. But somehow there is a craving for that time and place where all is, well, just right.

Set against that, ”Bloom where you are planted” reminds me that I am me, and I am here, and that the immediate task is not to wish those things different but to learn to live well with them. That living well starts with accepting myself and my circumstances, cultivating contentment, and trusting that I can indeed bloom here - bloom in the sense of flourishing personally, in some way, and bloom in the sense of making life brighter for others too.

I have to say, though, that I’m not very good at accepting the here and now. I somehow always feel that things being okay or sorted is just a step or two away, just a bit of effort further along. That’s an illusion, of course. In this life things are never completely okay or sorted, and while striving for change and improvement is no bad thing, it becomes unhelpful when it stops me accepting my present reality.

That’s not to say that it isn’t sometimes time to move on - whether geographically or in some other way. My experience of seeking to follow God’s call is that he can ask us to step far out of our comfort zone, to uproot ourselves and embrace a whole new way of life that affects all that seemed precious to us. And for some people, circumstances are so damaging or abusive that getting out is the only answer. But even when the it is right to uproot, we do that most healthily if we recognise the reality of where we are now, as the start of any journey onwards. And when God’s call is to stay right where we are, it is an invitation to let our roots sink deep, and to find out what it means to live fully in this place - whether this place is for us a location, a role, a season of life, or the inside of our own head.

I know there is much that is good where I am planted, despite the challenges of Coronavirus lockdown. I’m one of the fortunate ones, relatively speaking. But being honest, I’m not much loving my present personal circumstance, of seeking the way forward out of burnout and deep fatigue, and trying to do so in the context of lockdown. The reality is that this recovery process will define my situation for some time to come, in various ways, and I wish that wasn‘t the case. I wish I could press fast-forward and get to a more cheerful part of the story. For me, the simple wisdom of the fridge magnet reminds me that in this unwelcome and unlooked for situation, I need to remember that it’s not just about getting to a future time when things are, by some measure, better; but that even in these circumstances, God loves me, is at work in me, and that there is blessing to be found in this present moment.

I was reminded of that yesterday not just by the magnet, but also by the view from my house down towards the end of the garden. I glanced out of my kitchen window, and as the sun was falling behind the trees, I saw a pop of something small and bright against the dark green-brown of the wooded area. It was the lone pale pink flower on a small, leggy rhododendron, and the flower at that moment was catching a stray ray of sunshine coming through the leaves of the surrounding trees. The rhododendron has been there for several years, well before my time here, and doesn’t seem to thrive. It’s not happy in its place, whether because of soil or shade or something else. But at that particular moment, its one open bloom shone bright, and stood out amidst the encroaching shadows.

Nearby there is also a silver birch which, sadly, didn’t come into leaf this spring, and must have died over the winter. It is planted quite close to other trees, and perhaps they were too much in competition with each other, though it seemed to do well until this year. The reality is that we don’t always bloom. I know that. We can’t always thrive where we are, or in the way we are trying to live, and sometimes our real need is to find a way out before our roots shrivel and our sap fails.

I came too close to being like that silver birch. Even if now I don’t feel I am in the lush and abundant growth of happier plants in sunny May, perhaps I can at least be like that rhododendron. There it is, making the best of an unpromising situation, holding on, and still daring to throw out the occasional bold and beautiful bloom. And that flower is all the brighter for being set amongst the shadows. Against the odds, it is blooming where it is planted. And if you look closely, there are more brave buds appearing, too...