Next week we are moving house and our lives. Between now and then I need to physically dig up the bulbs that I have planted here and put them in either pots or a box ready to take with me to my new life. I feel paralysed. I am looking for self-soothing activities and avoiding the things that are most urgent or perhaps more truthfully, more important. In particular, I believe that I am delaying digging up my bulbs because I know it will signify a psychological digging up of my roots here too.
We sought this move and have many logical reasons why we believe it is a good choice for us and our family. We firmly believe it is a good decision and yet I am terrified. Afraid that I will not connect with new friends. Nervous that we will be worse off and that I will be unable to support the friends that I’m leaving behind. Afraid that I cannot control the outcome of how this leap into the unknown future will unfold.
On an intellectual level, I realise that holding on or worrying about it is about as useful as clinging the rope tightly to my chest when told to lean back during abseiling. Doing that makes it more unsafe, leaning back is what allows the rope to support your weight and keep you safe. So why am I struggling to do this? Why at times, do we all struggle to lean back and allow God to support us in the scary or dark times?
Who is it really that I am worried will fail or fall? Is it me or God?
Who am I focusing on? Me or God?
Whose plan am I relying on? Mine or God’s?
I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
Job 42:2-3
I am worried about what I can do in darkness. I am unsure about how I will react if things are more difficult than I anticipate. I am scared that I will crumble in the face of this challenge. But what if I trust God even while I am afraid?
Perhaps that is the main blessing in the dark times, to trust that God can bring something beautiful out of them. Jonah experienced darkness in the whale. It brought him to repentance. Jacob wrestled with God in the night while he was separated from his family. It resulted in God blessing him. Christ wrestled with temptation in the dark spiritual times in the garden before his crucifixion. Christ conquered sin by continuing His Father’s plan for our redemption.
So, those bulbs that I am delaying digging up. They are buried in the cold and dark. Do they need to anticipate or plan for what is above the soil? Will they be safer if they stay underground? They, like us, have to trust that their designer knows what He is doing, or at least can salvage any situation that comes, and do what they were designed to do. Bloom.