There’s No Such Thing As Annuals

My mom used to own and operate her own greenhouse. If having a green thumb is a thing, my mom is green head-to-toe – that woman can make anything grow anywhere!

Recently, while sitting on my deck looking at the shriveling petunias left over from our 4th of July party, I was saddened by the fact they were almost completely dead. Brown, dry, crisp. With only a hint of their former green life remaining. Not that I hadn’t been caring for them, but Petunias are annuals, which means they only bloom for one season, one year, and then they die. They will not regrow or bloom again next year, their little roots cannot survive the harsh winter in Ohio.

Even though they were practically dead already, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. I imagined them sitting in the bottom of my dumpster feeling rejected and discarded even though they had done nothing wrong. (I’m a bit irrational when it comes to any living thing….ask my husband about it sometime)

But that got me thinking about why God would create something so beautiful, something that brings me (and others) so much joy, to just then wither up and die.

One voice in my head wants to tell me it’s because God isn’t really good or kind or loving. That He is cruel or indifferent.

But another voice, the One I’ve come to hear more often and more clearly, tells me that’s not true.

So, I start there. With the things I know about God that are true:

God is good and kind and loving, and creative.

He makes beautiful things because He enjoys it and He enjoys bringing joy to His children.

God also does not create any living thing that does not reproduce or regenerate itself.

With those facts I concluded, petunias, and therefore all annuals, must actually be man made, genetically altered, for them to die off on the winter.

I text my mom asking if that was the case.

But before she could respond, I had a follow up thought. “Or, is it that every plant is really a perennial (meaning it never dies and/or does come back every year) in the right climate?”

My mom’s response came as her typical short-hand over text, “yes, to the second”.

So it turns out, there is actually no such thing as annuals. They are just perennials planted in the wrong place.

There have been countless persons make an exhaustive number of spiritual metaphors regarding plants and planting. Jesus himself not excluded. (See Matthew 13)

And I don’t doubt at some point in your life – probably more than once – you’ve seen some motivational poster with a striking image of budding flora and the words “bloom where your planted” overlayed.

But still as I snapped this picture this morning and thought of that conversation with my mom, words and ideas started flowing.

I’ve always interpretted Jesus’s parable of the sower as just throw seed everywhere and see what sticks. And that poster communicated just do your part to flourish as much as you possibly can wherever God has you planted in the moment. And that certainly is true and valid.

But I’d never thought about making sure you are darn-well planting in the right place before you start trying to grow something! Otherwise, after one magnificent season full of vigorous and vibrant color you might just shrivel up and die! (Metaphorically speaking, of course)

And then I realized, I think that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

I think that’s a reality of what any of us are doing anytime we experience burnout in a given endeavor. We are trying to grow something somewhere in which God never created it to grow. We want to plant seeds where we want them to be planted, or just any place we can, without stopping to consider the cost of loss come end of season. So it may work for a season, but anytime we are working outside and against God’s intended design, we will ultimately shrivel back into the ground.

I wonder if it hurts God’s heart at all when we bring plants into climates where they can’t survive and then just dig them up and throw them out each year? (I have no idea if He gets as emotionally attached to inanimate objects as I do sometimes) but I can guarantee it hurts Him to watch us trying to force growth in our lives in the wrong territory.

I recommend before you start trying to grow something yourself, take a good look around and ask God if that’s the best place to try to plant a seed or develop roots.

Transplanting is hard. Landscapers literally use the word “trauma” to describe what happens to a plant that has been uprooted and planted somewhere new. But often, it’s what’s best for the health of the plant in the long run.

If where you are now you feel your petals are falling off and leaves are drying up, you might want to think of consulting the Master Gardener about a relocation to the plot he has picked out for you.

LANES, PAINS, AND PLAYDOUGH SALONS

Hi, my name is Meagan. I am a songwriter/nanny/blogger in Nashville, Tennessee. I love Jesus and I love Taco Bell gorditas. I believe the invention of Crocs initiated the American decline. I regularly tell waiters I am allergic to cilantro when really I just don’t like the taste. I have watched Gossip Girl to its seasonal entirety 4 times in the past 10 years (#TeamLonelyBoy). I absolutely adore my friendships, think my family might actually change the world, and applaud any sign of grace over judgement.

So now that we’ve become a little more acquainted, allow me to share one of my most daunting personal issues. I mean, we’re there right?

If I had to choose one thing that holds me back from accomplishing my purpose, it is that vicious little vixen we like to call “comparison.” As a woman, I have found upon confession that I am not the only one filling a seat on this struggle bus, so I hope I am not writing this post in vain.

I moved to Nashville over a year ago and, quite honestly, gained the songwriters momentum quickly. I was focused and driven, a picture perfect cliche of the American dream. I developed deep, valuable friendships within the industry, and began what I hoped to be a thriving career. I came to Nashville believing that one could either be inspired or defeated by the amount of creatives in one city. With the best of intentions, I supported my friends and loved our little songwriting world. And then my friends started succeeding. They went on world tours, got record deals, and signed to labels that set their writing schedules. They instagrammed shows and facebooked conference photos. They began to pass me in the race, versus run alongside. At least, that was my personal, emotional perspective. On the outside, I celebrated each friend, went to their shows, promoted their new albums. But on the inside, I sank and sank fast. My faith and focus faltered, slowly stripping my heart of its original intent and filling it with a fear that God skipped over me and had chosen my friends instead. You see, I struggled with staying in my own lane. I realize that phrase can be highly overused in any self-help arena, but just bear with me as we dissect.

Each of us, upon birth, are given the beautiful gift of a one lane road in the form of a “calling” or “purpose.” God gives us an identity and graces us with dreams and goals to fulfill His ultimate purpose on earth. Our simple task is to stay in our lane and run the race presented before us, to do the best we can with what He’s given.

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 3:14

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” -1 Corinthians 9:24

I was constantly glancing over at my friends and family, eyeing their race with envy and, ultimately, defeat. If I had simply kept my eyes forward and focused on God’s path versus theirs, who knows what I would’ve accomplished by this time. Comparison is crippling. Learning to stay in your lane and embrace your personal race isn’t easy, trust me, I’m still a work in progress. But there are a few things I’ve picked up along the way that might be worth a read. So how do we stay in our lane? How do we keep that focus? Lucky for you, I have a few car analogies to get things rolling. (Get it? Rolling? Like a tire? Yeah I’m awesome.)

“IF YOU WANT TO SURVIVE, DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE”

Remember 5 years ago when Oprah went bat poop cray over texting and driving, creating awareness and a culture shift in her wake? We all know texting and driving is not only idiotic, it can be deadly. Too many statistics solidify that fact. And yet, how many times do we catch ourselves on an empty highway or bored in a traffic jam typing away? We check our Facebook during lunch hours, we don’t go out unless the plan is Instagram-worthy, and we get all our news updates from Twitter. Our lives revolve around connection, and social media has become the great connector. It can be a beautiful thing, a generational tool to be celebrated! It can also be fatal when viewed at the wrong time. One of the main contributors to my personal life-lane swerve was social media. I was in a habit of waking up and hitting my newsfeed before I hit snooze. Everyday I began with a solid dose of comparison. With every “like,” I developed a big fat failure feeling, all before my first cup of coffee.

I will say, it took a certain amount of self-awareness to realize that this was an unhealthy habit for me. Some seasons I can celebrate every single human on my newsfeed with adorational abandon. (No, adorational is not a word.) But I now know there are other seasons when I feel like life is moving a tad slower, or Jesus has me in a waiting period, when I have to monitor my social media intake. If I’m looking over at anothers filtered view of constant success, it’s easy for me to feel like I can never catch up. If you’re constantly checking on another lane, you will veer off your course entirely, causing a mental collision that’s hard to come back from. Satan loves these little stalls, these tiny hits of negativity. Be honest with yourself and your journey. Evaluate whether it’s a healthy season for you to be virtually present, and if it’s not, unplug. Trust me, your world will not end. People will still contact you. Your lunch will be just as good without the stand-on-chair crema filtered photo.

“CHECK YOUR BLINDSPOT, BABY”

One of the first things they teach you in drivers ed is to never change lanes without checking your blindspot. There could be someone else in the way, or a road obstruction outside of your view. When we swerve and skid into another’s lane, comparing ourself to what seems like their massive success, we rarely get the whole picture. We believe the grass is greener, however we don’t know what kind of weeds are hiding in their backyard. It’s so important to check yourself when you begin to compare because you don’t know that persons complete story. You don’t know what they went through to get to this place in their journey. You don’t know what they are currently battling to stay afloat. You don’t know who they hurt, loved, or lost along the way. You are literally comparing your entirety to their partiality and that makes no sense. Perspective is everything. Everyone has a blindspot they keep hidden or quieted, so when you compare keep in mind that you are most likely not getting the full picture.

“WE GON’ CELEBRATE AND HAVE A GOOD TIME”

Remember that feeling you got as a kid? You’d be at your best friend’s birthday party and they’d be joyfully opening presents while you were forced to stand around and watch. Part of you was just happy to be in the room, genuinely excited to be celebrating your friend. The other was absolutely downright jealous that they just opened the brand new state of the art Playdough salon you’d been secretly saving for with every lemonade stand. Can I get a witness? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that feeling never really goes away. It just transforms itself into light envy via mountaintop engagement Facebook post, or new homeowners keys. You see your friends moving on and having these amazing adulting wins, and boom, here comes that little comparison virus. I have found that a practical way of mentally battling that moment is to outwardly and sometimes embarrassingly celebrate your tribe.

My friend Stephanie is AMAZING at this, ya’ll. If her boys come home from school with even so much as a worm they found on the playground, she will fall to the floor in shrieks of joy over their accomplishment. She is my #momgoals in so many ways. When someone you love has a moment to celebrate and you find yourself comparing, immediately catch it, acknowledge it, and then defeat it by doing the exact opposite of what your feelings tell you. Take the friend to dinner, freak out on their comment section, lose your mind in their general direction. Celebrate your people, because that’s what we are called to do. We are called to laugh with those who laugh, and mourn with those who mourn. So laugh, even when you feel like less, even when you feel left out or alone. Let those closest to you know that no matter what is happening in your life, you value their dreams and goals and support them completely. This isn’t easy. Trust me, I know. There was a moment in a particularly hard season of singleness when a friend of mine announced her pregnancy. I had a choice. I could celebrate alongside her or cower in my defeat. I chose to celebrate her, shower her, and quite honestly over-honor her. I am so glad I did. God blesses that obedience, and He fills that hurt. He is glorified through your willingness to lay your life down for your friend. So ya’ll, celebrate good times, come on.

“HONEY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR”

The main thing that shocks me back into reality when I find myself comparing is one simple truth: THIS IS NOT MY LANE. Let me explain. This life, this gift of humanity you’ve been given, this lane is not yours. It belongs to God, first and foremost, no argument. When I focus on me, my failures, my insecurities, I forget the fact that this life and lane is meant to glorify Him.

“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” -Galations 1:10

Yikes. That’s terrifyingly blunt. “I would not be a servant of Christ if I was trying to please man.” We are here to share the gospel and our calling in life is perfectly assigned to reflect that truth. The fact of the matter is, if you stay in your lane and keep your focus above versus beside, you’ll realize this race, this journey is not about you. It’s about Jesus. And if it’s about Jesus, then there’s nothing that compares. He is all that matters, His heart, His opinion, His work is incomparable. This life is not about us. Your lane is not really your lane. It belongs to God. When I remember this, it puts everything into perspective. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing or accomplishing. My passion and focus is on Jesus, and that alone is the prize. That alone is all I need to fulfill me. That alone is all I desire.

Trust that Jesus sees you and loves you. He celebrates you and covers you. When you look from right to left, don’t compare your story. Jesus doesn’t. Like I said, I am still a work in progress when it comes to comparison. But oh how the pressure releases when I remember that this life is not my own. I’ve learned that if I keep my focus on Him, He never fails me. Stay in your lane. It might seem small right now, the road may seem windy or difficult, but know that God has gone before you. He sees every lane on that road and has made sure you are in the exact one that will fulfill the desires of your heart and bring others to His kingdom.

Celebrate your tribe, press forward, embrace God’s plan for your life. STAY IN YOUR LANE. And always honk if you love Jesus, ya’ll.

(If you’d like to read more humorously insightful posts by Meagan, you can find her blog here: www.thegracefulattempt.com )

The Year God Stopped Talking to Me

New year’s day 2016 I sat on my living room couch, face red-stained and eyes puffy from hours of crying, my voice half-strained from screaming – at God – in particularly colorful language at times.

Why?

Because it was New Year’s Day and as I sat down to reflect on the previous year and craft my plans and goals for the next, I realized 2015…..Well…..sucked.

Sure there were good things in 2015. In fact, on the outside it looked like a GREAT year:
We bought our first house.
Barry left his job where he was miserable and went into business with his Dad.
We took my my mom on an incredible trip to Hawaii for her 60th birthday.
I finished the last chapter of my book
Started a blog and author social media pages
Began my public speaking career…..

But behind the scenes:
The first two months in our new house Barry and I fought more than we had in the first five years of our relationship – combined.
Barry’s new arrangement with his dad happened a little prematurely than they planned and put a lot of pressure on both of them. Which caused Barry to be tense and irritable and led to us fighting more.
The second day of our incredible Hawaii trip, I got a call that my high school best friend overdosed on heroin and died and I spent most the trip bouncing back and forth between laughing and enjoying the present moment and crying after being blindsided by another memory of him.
I was told blogging and creating a social media following was necessary for building a platform for a book release. But once I started, they only added extra work and mental energy to my already overflowing plate. Which caused me to feel exhausted and (you guessed it) led to us fighting more.
My new speaking career was also happening earlier than I anticipated – it felt overwhelming and intimidating to me, like I was in over my head. I constantly questioned if I was ready or qualified for the task at hand, leaving me feeling insecure and vulnerable.

The fact that all of these things happened within a three month timespan caused so much stress, tension, and anxiety in my life – and my body- it literally almost broke my gallbladder.

I experienced excruciating pain that resulted getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night, for months. It was so bad I almost went to the emergency room on more than one occasion. I lived in fear of every meal I ate because I never knew what was going to hurt me and what wasn’t. For about a month, I ate nothing but rotisserie chicken and apples, since I knew those were two things that would not cause pain.

Sure, there were good things that came as a result of the bad things:
My alarming health challenge caused Barry and I to stop fighting. I had never felt his love as tangibly as I did in those months, as he cared for me, sat up with me, rubbed the soreness out of my back from being hunched over for hours, stayed up with me, and prayed for me.
He took over as the spiritual leader in our home, standing in the gap for me as I struggled with doubt, uncertainty and fear.
These things aroused a great respect and admiration in me for him, and caused me to fall more deeply in love with him than I ever had been.

Days leading up to New Year’s, I couldn’t stop reminding myself that the ONE thing I did want to get accomplished in 2015 – publishing my book – didn’t happen.

I literally had a single goal, a single dream, a single resolution for two-thousand-fifteen: to put my book on physical (and digital) bookshelves and into hands of people who so desperately need it.
And it. didn’t. happen.

I felt like a total failure. Like I had wasted an entire year of my life.

And, in the midst of aaaaallllll that, God was completely, and utterly, silent. He had been for months at that point.

For countless nights I sat up in hours of pain, I had been pleading with God to show Himself to me. To show me the purpose in any of this.

I had reasoned if the manifestation of my healing wasn’t happening physically immediately, then there must be something I was supposed to be learning in the meantime. Something God wanted to teach me in this place of waiting.

I began asking Him what that was and let Him know I was fully open and joyfully on-board with learning whatever the lesson. Honestly.

Awaiting a reply, I got: NOTHING.
Not a peep.
Nada.
Zilch.
Not a single word

And then, our basement flooded.

That’s when the crying started.

It was New Year’s Eve. As we sat at home, instead of out ringing in the new year with our friends, dismantling drywall and sucking water out with a carpet shampooer, the weight of everything just hit me. I reached my breaking point. And enough tears to fill our basement a second time came spilling out of me.

I began crying out to God again.

If you’re going to make me go through all of this, at least tell me what I’m supposed to be learning! What I’m supposed to be getting out of it!! I shouted at Him.

Still nothing.

I don’t deserve this! I am being so faithful. Do you not see me? Are you not paying attention? Look at me!! What more do you want from me?!

[I began to feel a little like the bi-polar David in Psalms: “I love you Lord, your eyes are always upon me, you have blessed me abundantly.” Very next verse, “God, why do you hate me? My enemies are about to destroy me, why aren’t you watching?!”]

More silence.

And that’s when I got angry.

By New Year’s day, I was yelling most of the same things – just use your imagination to insert expletives in the middle of every sentence. (I guess I had moved on to a little bit of Job at that point….)

Now, what would make this story really great is if this is the part where I tell you, “and then God’s voice boomed audibly into my living room and said, ‘Rachel, oh ye of little faith, I Am still right here.’”

But that’s not what happened.

In fact, I had to sit on this blog for several months because my prayers for a Word and an understanding remained unanswered.

This was the first time since becoming a Christian – really becoming a Christian, since God had pursued me and I met Him in a real and intimate way five years ago – that I wasn’t hearing from Him, that I couldn’t feel Him close to me.

I had relegated myself to the thought that I was just in spiritual dry/desert season and would have to wait it out. (You can read about the desert season here: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/deserts)

But Now…..The Rest of the Story

A couple months prior to my New Year’s Day meltdown, a friend reached out to me asking me if I could recommend any specific scripture to help her through a current rough season. I told her, “That’s not really the way my relationship with God works – I hear from Him in songs, and books about Him, or books about the Bible, or even from Him directly (in my mind).” I recommended some songs that really helped me when I was in the same place, and a couple books she could read. And went on about my day.

See, I had tried reading the Bible all the way through, more than once, without success. And anytime I was dealing with something specific, I tried flipping to the concordance to find verses that applied to my own situation, but I always turned up empty – the verses would feel disconnected from what I was going through, so I gave up on that.

Whenever I needed an answer about something, I picked up a Christian book on the topic or found a preacher teaching a message about it to get my answer.

In those weeks of silence while battling my gallbladder symptoms, I began reading a book a friend had recommended to me. It was a topical study Bible called, “The Complete Personalized Promise Bible for Women”. I planned on using it for reference to find healing scriptures to meditate on, but I started with page 1 of the introduction and I’m glad I did. It hooked me, and I started reading it as a daily devotional of sorts.

For each section/topic, there is a promise, a faith confession for that promise, then scriptures backing up the confession.

While studying there, I came across this verse in 2^nd Thessalonians: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold on to the teachings passed on to you, whether by word of mouth OR BY LETTER.”

I started laughing as it occurred to me Paul was writing to the early church in Thessalonica; those people were getting their messages from God in written letters, via Paul.

And in that moment Paul’s letter was to me saying: “God has written a letter to you. Stand firm and hold on to the things He wrote down 2,000 years ago.”

The next day as I sat writing in my prayer journal, praising God for using that verse to speak to me, I started laughing again as another revelation came: The Bible is called “God’s Word” – literally God’s Words. The Words He spoke to the people He loved. He had already said plenty to me, and it was all written down and recorded, preserved in time, so I could revisit it anytime I wanted or needed.

I was humbled. How arrogant of me to expect Him to talk to me, when I want, in the manner I want?

All that time I was in the desert, He was talking to me right in those pages, but I wasn’t receiving it. I wasn’t even looking in the right place!

How many tears (and angry words), how much stress and heartache, would I have saved myself if I had only looked there earlier? How different could the year 2015 have been?

God – thanks for never leaving us, and never forsaking us. Thanks for loving us enough to send and leave Your Word for us. And thanks for your everlasting and unconditional grace that we can never ever use up, because we need it – big time.