Thoughts on Blooming

The other day I decided to redo my blog banner. I really had no idea what I was doing and it took me forever. Still didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it. Anyway, during the process I kept re-typing "Thoughts on living life wherever God plants you...." You know what? I really started feeling like a hypocrite.
My blog is titled "Bloom Right Here". Am I truly doing that? Am I even trying? Oh, maybe somedays. But I sure spend a lot of time being frustrated with where I am at. I've still been questioning why God planted me here. See the beautiful bud in the above picture? The tree (some sort of Magnolia?) has quite a few of these. Unfortunately, most of them turn brown and ugly before they fully bloom. It is disappointing. I keep watching for them to bloom. I want to enjoy their full beauty. I guess that is what God is doing with me. Waiting and watching for me to bloom. He will be disappointed if I remain bitter and let my attitude become ugly. He wants to see me thrive, not languish. He wants to see my beauty. Who am I to deny Him that?
A dear friend emailed me the other day with something she had just read from a Beth Moore Bible study. Wow! This is what Beth says: "Let's face it. Most of us have a love-hate relationship with the places we've gotten our mail, but God intended to use every stop to equip us as servants. You have been assigned to your town or your city and, and equally, it has been assigned to you. You may feel like an exile within its city limits, but just as God spoke through the prophet, Jeremiah (Jer. 29:4-7), He wants to prosper you there. His method may not be through what your city can do to edify and serve you. It may be what you can do to build up your city - one neighbor, one teacher, one trash collector at a time. Remember, you don't have to be on the school board or in city government for God to use you. He ministers to cities just as readily by ministering to neighbors. The point is, to understand that we've been called by God's purposes to the places we live." Wow, again!
Do I understand why God planted me and my family here? No. I may never fully know. I do know that I need to look beyond myself. I need to stop wondering when people are going to reach out to me and start looking for people to reach out to. I need to "bloom right here" so that God and others can enjoy the gift that is from Him.

{This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Jeremiah 29:4-7}