“Bloom where you’re planted.”

The idea looks adorable on a pillow, but the practice leaves much to be desired.

It’s a common phrase repeated over and over during PCS season—military moves, for those who may not be familiar with the lingo. And there are multiple places we have lived where I felt less like blooming and more like withering.

The soil felt wrong.
The water wasn’t hydrating.
I was convinced I was simply the wrong plant.

It’s strange to look back now and realize that during some of the seasons when I thought something was wrong with me, change was actually happening in me.

What I thought was suffocating was anchoring me.

There is growth we cannot always see, happening deep beneath the soil.

There are seasons in our lives when we bloom. There are seasons when we are pruned. There are seasons when we are newly planted and barely beginning to establish roots.

God remains with us in every one of them, tending to us.

If you asked me what season I’m in right now, I’m not actually sure.

Some days feel like growth. Other days feel more like pruning and clipping.

I would love to say I rejoice equally in both, but that wouldn’t be honest.

What I can say is that no matter what season I’m in, I know God is in control.

Of course, even with that knowledge, I still have a tendency to behave like a temperamental houseplant—protesting the pruning, the planting, and occasionally even the watering unless the conditions happen to be exactly what I wanted.

Maybe that is part of growth too.

Learning that being uncomfortable does not always mean we are in the wrong soil.

Learning that not every quiet season is a stagnant one.

Learning that roots can be growing long before anything blooms above the surface.

And learning that our job may not always be to bloom where we’re planted.

Sometimes our job is simply to stay anchored while God tends what is growing underneath.

Stay anchored. Tend the roots. Turn toward the Light. Make room to grow.