Live Life Full Bloom

How To Know When It's Time to Move From Where You Are To Transform & Bloom

*Image: blooming rose in my own front yard. Copyright Melissa D. White

One Day You'll Wake Up & Decide To Bloom

I know, you have been in a season that felt dark, often impossible, and one day you look up and the cloud has lifted. Have you felt this way before? It's as if the rain wouldn't stop, but you held on the best way you knew how: praying, hoping, wishing, and some days it was crying, pushing through the pain, or even just pressing your way to show up for loved ones that kept you going. Then what seems like all of a sudden, the dark cloud is gone.

Well, that suddenly was really you daily planting seeds of not giving up. Your tears are watering the garden that you will rest in and eat from. And those clouds, oh they were just privately covering you and processing you for what was on the other side. It's the small things that you allow to process you, such as daily deciding to let in others who love you, getting the help you need to guide you through the darkness (therapy, coaching, pastoral care, or all three in my case) that will usher you back into the light.

The outward transformation and life you long for does not happen on the outside first. Flowers bloom from the inside out.

God Didn't Forget Your Seeds

"Bubble Bee, Go Forth." Those were God's words to me as I woke up one week after my 40th birthday. I would have thought I imagined it if I didn't hear it twice. The significance of this is the meaning of my name. Melissa in latin means "sweetness of a honey bee." It was as if God was reminded me of who I am and who I am called, His bee, sent to do the work of spreading a message of hope, activation and transformation in every field in which I am assigned. These words deepen their meaning as I reflect on what is the function and purpose of a bee. To pollinate, to carry seeds that support duplication and multiplication in the earth. A good friend once told me, You have sown lots if good seeds in others. It's your time to receive what you have sown. It was as if she reminded me that I had a track record of pouring into others, and I just had to believe that the same would be sown into me. I just had to learn to receive the rain and let in some light so my seeds would grow. When you are so used to giving, and sometimes giving until you give out, we forget that we are also called to receive. To receive the fruits of the spirit, to receive the abundant life we are called to have, to receive unconditional love. It will come back to you, but first you must believe you will bloom.

You have sown lots if good seeds in others. It's your time to receive what you have sown.

Hard Times Water Seeds

I have heard the phrase, God collects your tears, but I always wondered when and how he would use them to water all that I trusted Him to do. I once resented the very hard and tumultuous seasons of life, especially after this last difficult year of sickness, loss of friendships, break ups, job change, business bumps and bruises, and honestly just a total loss of self at some of the hardest moments. Then one day, as I drew closer to this milestone birthday and pivotal moment in my life, I saw things start to bloom. I no longer felt the pain of my old heart ache. I begin to take joy again in getting dressed up and going out into the world to enjoy what the day had to offer. I intentionally sought conversations that poured into me and fellowship with friends and loved ones who fed my soul. One day I looked up and bloomed. It was not that it happened all of a sudden, but it was that it was happening the entire time on the inside, but the external evident was apparent on the outside.

I begin to bud and blossom openly in the things that were once just an idea or a dream that I had no idea I could be or do. I had to accept the transformation: the planting, the burying, the brushing, the watering, the budding, then the blooming.

Embrace Your Blooming Season

Embrace your blooming season as a reward for weathering the storms of life. And if you are reading this in the place of being processed in your dark days, just know that you will bloom again. It's already in you. Speak to the bloom in you to come forth. Surround yourself with people and things that water you, support you, shine light and uplight you. Prune anything that cyphers the nutrients you need to cultivate your own garden: the self love, discipline, motivation, joy and love that feed your garden of greatness.

You were a flower the entire time. You just needed to stand in the light to bloom.

Follow The Change of Your Season. Transform & Bloom.

Stay Activated. ~M

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