Good morning…
“Because of my tech savvy ineptness, I couldn’t write about this picture of a pansy,” she wrote me the day after our final Waking Up Whole Zoom class. “This pansy is from my garden,” she explained in her follow up email. “I named it ‘bloom where you don’t want to be planted.'”
I like the persistent pansy photo, I love the descriptive name, and I hate the experience of being planted where you don’t want to be.
Many of you know the story of God yanking us out of the life of my dreams, extracting us from a vibrant Pennsylvania village where our young family of six had happily settled within walking distance of everything. Living near extended family. Celebrating everyday life with incredible friends. Freely loving and being loved, up close and at ease. Then, for the sake of my husband’s ministry as a chaplain to high school kids and their families, we were abruptly uprooted to Atlanta, Georgia. That was the summer of 2003.
Backed into an unwanted corner, all I could experience was brick, brick, brick. Depressed loneliness boxed me in, brick, brick, brick. No sunlight for my soul. No fresh air to fill my lungs. For two heavy and hollow years, I experienced no flourishing, no blossoming, no mutually beneficial love growing up and expanding out.
“This is where I am now – ‘bloom where you don’t want to be planted’,” wrote the Zoom class member I have never met. When we feel backed into an unwanted corner and all we are experiencing is brick, brick, brick, this persistent pansy picture reminds us that God is still invisibly at work beneath the dark crevices of our lives. Our friend Jesus knows full well our “backed into a brick corner” experience.
Out of emptiness he came, like a tender shoot from rock-hard ground. He didn’t look like anything or anyone of consequence—he had no physical beauty to attract our attention. So he was despised and forsaken by men, this man of suffering, grief’s patient friend. As if he was a person to avoid, we looked the other way; he was despised, forsaken, and we took no notice of him.
Yet it was our suffering he carried, our pain and distress, our sick-to-the-soul-ness. We just figured that God had rejected him, that God was the reason he hurt so badly. But he was hurt because of us; he suffered so. Our wrongdoing wounded and crushed him. He endured the breaking that made us whole. The injuries he suffered became our healing.
We all have wandered off, like shepherdless sheep, scattered by our aimless striving and endless pursuits; The Eternal One laid on him, this silent sufferer, the sins of us all (Isaiah 53:2-6, VOICE).
With full permission from God our Father, Jesus was abruptly uprooted by the previously adoring crowd and betrayed then denied by his best friends. This silent sufferer was brutally backed into the brick corner of the cross for the sake of me, for the sake of you, for the sake of every person given breath. This Holy Week, we recount the resurrection story of a persistent pansy emerging from the pain we cause.
Even though it pleased Yahweh to crush him with grief, he will be restored to favor. After his soul becomes a guilt-offering, he will gaze upon his many offspring and prolong his days. And through him, Yahweh’s deepest desires will be fully accomplished. After the great anguish of his soul, he will see light and be fully satisfied. By knowing him, the righteous one, my servant will make many to be righteous, because he, their sin-bearer, carried away their sins (Isaiah 53:10-11, TPT).
“Christ’s sacrifice results in the birth of spiritual offspring,” says the footnote for verse ten. “He will see his spiritual offspring and enjoy living his life through them; thus, it could be said he prolonged his days. The life we live is no longer our own, and in a way, we prolong his days as we walk in close fellowship with Christ. A people in his image is the joy that was set before him.”
His example is this: Because his heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God! So consider carefully how Jesus faced such intense opposition from sinners who opposed their own souls, so that you won’t become worn down and cave in under life’s pressures (Hebrews 12:2b-3, TPT).
“This is where I am now – ‘bloom where you don’t want to be planted’,” wrote the Zoom class member I have never met. “But, Sue, through you and your study, I have found not one, but two sisters in Christ that are on my wavelength spiritually right here in Central Florida. We are meeting at a local park today to further invest in our blossoming friendship.”
When we feel “backed into a brick corner,” life’s pressure builds up and we are worn down. Eventually we die to everything that separates us from our Creator God and we push up toward the sunlit fresh air of the living Christ. My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine! (Galatians 2:20, TPT).
Now each day, in big and small ways, may we choose not to oppose union with the risen Christ, who is waking up whole our persistent pansy-like souls.
…Sue…
