Bloom

I like flowers. I think they're pretty. My goal was to plant a flower garden in my yard (I'm not quite there yet) that will be filled with beautiful bloomed flowers. Last fall I was toiling away in the dirt planting bulbs all over and making sure they had enough room beside each other to grow without interrupting each other. This took me well over an hour and by the time I sat down and looked at my hard work, the Lord (of course) dropped something in the midst of my heart that I would like to share.

Hanging with my momma. Jamaica-December 2013

1. Fall:I worked so hard for so long, but when I was done everything was still...empty. There was no evidence of my work apart from the pulled up dirt. God sometimes gives us a Word of what He's going to do in our lives. When we hear, we get SO excited and want to tell the world! However a few days go by, weeks, months years and we see nothing of what God said He was going to do. All we notice is the pulled up dirt around us. That pulled up dirt could be family or friends who have turned their backs on us or even drama, tests or trials in our lives. I want to tell you that God's promises never come back null and void. God will do what He told you that He will do. You just went through all that pulled up dirt because He needed to develop you. You needed to get some roots in Christ, a firm foundation in Him. He needed to rid you of toxic people in your life who were not qualified to be with you on that next level (for whatever reason). He has planted you, just wait for it....

2. Winter: Brrrr it's so cold. The air is brisk. In the morning and wee hours of the night it seems like frost is all over you. Snow storms come and you are buried. Single people can I talk to yall for a minute? I, like you, am single. I don't believe that God has called me to a life of singleness (because He has not specifically told me that), so I assume that eventually I would be married. I, however, am going through a season where I am not being noticed by any single Christian men. Like none, nada, zilch. To be honest, this has been the case for the entire time I have been a born again Christian (4 years). I'm excited about God, I love Him, I love spending my singleness working for Him. Can I be honest though, and say sometimes this fact makes me a little sad? I feel like I am buried under this snow. Nothing is happening and no one can see me. When am I going to come out of the snow?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,   

 a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,   

    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance, 

     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,  

  a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

   a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 

 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end

3. Spring/Summer: Seemingly out of no where, the flowers that I had planted 7 months prior started to bloom. So many tall and beautiful colors. They were breathtaking and every time I looked at them, I couldn't help but stop and smile. I was so proud. I can imagine God doing the same when we get to the place where He promised us we will be. So many times we think that God has forgotten about us when in fact He hasn't. He has been spending all this time (when it seemed like nothing was happening) working in and through you. Why? Because the way we are now is not a good fit for the promise that He has for us, so He needs to develop us until we are ready. And when we are, we will bloom and it will be so beautiful. At that time we will understand what God has been doing behind the scenes. We will begin to see how He cut certain people and things out of our lives, how He strategically placed us in certain places/situations and He placed certain opportunities in our hand. We will start to put the the pieces together and marvel at His works.

I want to encourage you to not be weary but to keep on pressing. It may not seem like anything is happening for a long time, but trust me...something is happening behind the scenes.

Like a flower bloom in me

Let Your beauty shine through me

For all the world to see

Like a lily by the stream
Let Your life break out in me
For all the world to see

Bloom, bloom in me Jesus

Take root, root in me

And I'll be new Jesus

Jesus IS the seed planted on the earth
because He died I live

There's new life, new life in me

There's new hope, new hope in me

Life is blooming out in me Jesus

Bloom by Phil Thompson and Zenzo Matoga

My cousin and I at Little Ochie: Jamaica-2013

P.S: sometimes we're not blooming because God us to do things that are necessary for Him to bring us to another level, we disobey and are blocking our own blessings. Read more about how I blocked my own blessings in a blog I wrote a while ago called "Are You Blocking Your Blessing?". Please do an #ObedienceSelfCheck and proceed accordingly.
commands

xo
Tasha

At a birthday dinner for a friend