Daffodils that didn't bloom. A Weekly Reflection from Emily Rutledge

A year and a half ago I planted tulip and daffodil bulbs in my front flower bed.  I was dang proud of myself.  It had taken me almost a year to get the energy and organization to take on the task… planting things two season before you want them to bloom really messed with my mind.  I am intrinsically lazy while also a perfectionist so I dug the holes at equal distances and had my children and their friends place the bulbs and cover them up.

We waited. 

Things grew.

It was beautiful.

I was proud of myself (and the kids… but mostly myself for getting my act together).

And as it goes; the spring came and went and as summer arrived and my flowers began to die I promptly cut the flowers below the soil so that the dying leaves and buds did not make the front of my house look disheveled.  I did this without any research or thought.  Then I found out that it was exactly NOT how to deal with this gardening situation and that I needed to let the blooms die and dry and then cut them.  

Go figure.

So here we are, a year later, my daffodils and tulips have sprung forth from the ground and while everywhere I look there are daffodils blooming my blooms are nowhere to be seen.  Green stalks, no flowers.  I have a sinking feeling my desire for my flowerbed to look perfect has killed the new growth that I wanted.

Those flowers needed the mess, the death, the drying out to live again.

My desire for perfect killed my hope for renewal.

When we look at the ways we present ourselves to the world, it’s easy to do the same.  Cut down the messy, the withering, the dead, so it can’t be seen.  Present the perfect picture to the world, to our friends, to our neighbors, and not let the brokenness, the pain, the falling apart, show.  And in turn, they will do the same.  They will hide their own pain and brokenness from us because the reciprocity of vulnerability, the safety of transparency, will not exist.  Each of us will cut off our ability to allow the Holy Spirit to do what She does best; use the brokenness in our lives to feed our souls and allow us to bloom again, a testimony to the power of resurrection.

Being a community in Christ does not mean showing up on Sundays with the perfectly dressed family and a picture perfect life.  Being a community in Christ means being honest and transparent about our lives, our brokenness, our failures.  It also means holding space and bearing witness as our neighbors do the same.  It means not judging the wilting flowers but reminding each other that there is beauty to come; that the brokenness brings the beauty, that Christ had to die for Easter to come.  Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians that, “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old has gone, the new is here!”

When we allow ourselves to be honest with the world- to show our brokenness, our imperfections, our wilting flowers, we give others permission to do the same.  When we become a church where broken people show up without needing to hide any part of their journey we become a community alive.  There will be those spouting, blooming, drying out, and laying fallow for a new season, and together we become the living, breathing, body of the resurrected Christ.  When we drop our desire to look perfect we open the door to a life of resurrection where in each season we are surrounded and loved as we are.  Instead of being perfect and admired we are broken, transforming, and known.