Open Spaces

I’ve had a lot more time on my hands this week, so I’ve taken up walking. I especially love it when the sun is out reminding me that there is still so much warmth to be felt here in this season. There is so much talk and chaos, old tensions mixed with new tensions of this unknown, and yet I am further filled with rising hope this is a spring we will always remember. Not for all the bad, but for all the good that was birthed from this place.  I feel the Spirit is leading us to faith and it’s welling up from a deep, deep place in us. Where hurry and crowded lifestyles have covered open spaces in our legacies and heritage of God’s people, I sense the Spirit saying “now. now is the time to break them open again and remember the simple truths of who you are as God’s people and who HE is”.

On my walk this morning, I couldn’t help but notice the wisteria. You know what I’m talking about? If you don’t, please google this bloom because they are stunning to me. Wisteria is a vining plant with cascades of blue to purple flowers that cling to whatever they are on. In my case, the wisteria clings to the trees and unkempt land across from my house and I LOVE it. What I have been enthralled by though is how quickly this vine blooms. I don’t typically get to take to their story, but with my newfound time I got to witness the beauty of one bloom to a birthday of blooms over the course of two days. It was so wild to me how fast they came to life. But, as I was walking the Lord reminded me of Matthew 6, the part about the lilies of the field. Instead of recalling it like a bible verse I’ve known for years it was like He was whispering to me, “Em, learn how the wildflowers of the field grow…”

Ever since He whispered it, I haven’t been able to let that thought go.

Learn how the wildflowers grow…

So much of my life, I read that passage and I think of the metaphor and its application to my life, but I don’t dwell on the words. I could easily take them as “Consider quickly. What of the flowers of the field? The birds of the air? Now this application. I got you.”

But what if I learned how the flowers grew? What if I kept my gaze on the sky and really watched the birds of the air? Would it shift something in my heart? Would it possibly shift the anxious beats to still quiet confidence?

I’m not saying the answer is in the birds and the flowers. What I am saying is the Spirit breathes life in us in the stillness, and from the stillness, we can gaze at His movements in ways we couldn’t before.

I’m not here to tell you I’ve got this mastered. He whispered this to me this morning, and I’m still pondering the depths filled in His word for this moment. I know time seems to be all we have and many feelings are present at the unknown before us, but I want to encourage our hearts, mine included here because oh do I desperately need this reminder too.

Friend, I think there is an invitation to cultivate these open spaces that are begging to be seen and dug back up. We can remember the names of the wells the Lord has placed in our lives from generations ago to be still and know He is here and He is God. We can look around and learn from clinging vines and beautiful new life springing forth that we are deeply cared for then, now, and always.

Since this morning, I learned wisteria can last for a long time and typically will bloom fast in spring, just as I got to sweetly witness. But, I also learned that these plants usually take several years before they begin flowering, before we get to see the beauty of the purples and the blues take shape. Don’t good things grow slow? Let the slow in, let the growth in, let the light in. Breathe deep, this may be a slower season, but there is much good to be cultivated from this place. The Lord is up to more than we can dream, so dream with Him and see what blooms from this place!

Author | Emily Goldin