I’m a person that loves a good routine. Rhythms and rules have served me well over the past 10+ years of my life, and have set good boundaries in place that built a lovely playground for me to frolic in. And the frolicing has been delightful!
So imagine my surprise when those routines, rhythms, and rules stopped working. I can’t pinpoint an exact date, but over time life became stagnant. The workouts stopped serving me. The mornings got dull. The literal path I would always walk lost its luster.
Amy Poehler writes in her memoir, “Yes Please”, that significant life change is like, “spreading everything you care about on a blanket then tossing the whole thing up in the air.”
Amy was specifically talking about the process of divorce for her, but the image rings true for me. No, I wasn’t going through a significant life change. Mostly everything was as it had always been*. Sure, some things had shifted around, but the foundational level of my life remained intact.
And yet, everything was on a blanket being tossed in the air.
It’s a strange thing when the systems you’ve built to support your life stop serving you out of nowhere and without warning.
Insert a sabbatical after nearly 13 years of full-time ministry.
This was definitely not part of the normal rhythm of my life.
I’d planned and prepared for my sabbatical for a few months before June 2nd actually came around. On that Monday morning, I was on a plane to a week long retreat for rest and care at a center whose mission is to serve those who serve.
I arrived and my host for the week showed me to my room. The Flower Room. Little did she know that I’d had the song Wildflowers by The Greatest Trio of All Time** stuck in my head for the last 8 months.
The refrain of the song that had been front and center of my mind, that Dolly, Linda, and Emmylou so effortlessly sing is, “Wildflowers don’t care where they grow.”
I’ve always loved Missouri wildflowers. I grew up with a grandma that would drive along dirt roads just to look in the ditches during a very specific two-to-three week period in June. She wanted to look at the wildflowers. And so I wanted to look at the wildflowers. Don’t tell her, but I wanted to look at them so much that I recently got a tattoo of a flower so I can see one anytime I want.
I got back from my week away and went to visit my family in Southern MO. I took a ride along the gravel road at the perfect time and wouldn’t you know, the wildflowers were growing in the ditch along the field.
You can’t convince me there’s a more beautiful sight than a Missouri ditch in June.
And again, that line – wildflowers don’t care where they grow – would not leave my head.
In the midst of forcing the same routines and rhythms into my life and seeing no change, God met me in the beauty of His creation with the invitation to let go.
Let go of what I’m “supposed” to do.
Let go of what used to work, but doesn’t anymore.
Let go of the old wineskin.
Let go of the expectation that I should be_____(fill in the blank).
If wildflowers don’t care where they grow, I don’t have to either.
My favorite Doctor of the Catholic Church (as a non-Catholic) is St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She saw herself as a “small wildflower, simple and hidden but blooming where God has planted her.” She believed in the simplicity of doing ordinary things with extraordinary love.
She didn’t care where she grew. But she grew. Being watered and tended to by a good Gardener. She didn’t need routine or rhythm. She simply gave herself over to Love and let Love do His work.
And that’s what 40 days off work and a ditch in Southern MO taught me.
My responsibility is to give myself over to Divine Love. Sure, I’m rebuilding some rhythms and routines and rules, setting up a new playground to frolic in. But I’m (hopefully) doing it with my good Friend Jesus, a kind and careful Gardener who tends to my soul.
I hope and pray that the ditch of my heart (can we take the metaphor there?) doesn’t look like it did 10+ years ago. I hope there’s a more vibrant ecosystem of wildflowers that have taken root and display immeasurable beauty. Even if it’s just for two or three weeks a year.
And I hope and pray that the ditch of my heart only continues to gather more life and beauty as the years and seasons come and go.
I hope this wildflower learns to not care where she grows. Only that she does grow.
*I did write a book during this time and if there’s anything I know about putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, it’s that the enemy will come for you. So I guess I should recognize that there was *some* change going on 🙂
**my personal opinion, but it is the correct one
Kayla Smith 