Dear Reader:
Haven’t we all, throughout periods in our lives, looked around and felt that we were somehow “stunted” in our growth…whether personally, chronologically, or professionally? Everyone else seems to have a purpose and goal and we are still trying to figure out who we are and where our place on earth really is?
Last year my magic moon flower gate was literally covered with moon flower blooms…overflowing. It was my first time planting them in the back on the gate and I was thrilled….all summer… into late fall… the blooms continued to multiply.
This year…I have only one thin moon flower vine on the gate and it has produced only two moon flower blooms this entire season. So when I spotted a bud a few days ago…I was beyond excited! I was so scared it would come and go before I got back from Conway.
It must have decided to wait on my return….because yesterday morning I woke up and remembered it…I scurried outside (in my robe before the sun hit it and it wilted)…At first I saw nothing…the bloom had decided to just plop on the top ledge behind the front gate….but still I was thrilled…at last a moon flower bloom on the moon gate…Hallelujah!
This incident got me thinking….about late-bloomers.
Professionally I stayed pretty much on target going through my career time-line…. I graduated high school, college in four years, taught middle school social studies for 28 years before going to the district office for four more years in administration….During that time I got my Masters so I could teach graduate courses at the colleges which I did and work at the state level which I did also. Professionally I stayed pretty much in sync with my career time-line.
Personally and spiritually, however, I have definitely been a late-bloomer. It took a cancer wake-up call to make me stop and see the world (and my role in it) through different eyes.
I think there is a thin line between procrastination….(usually based on fear of change) and blooming late. We hear and read constantly about the pitfalls of wasting our time and life by putting off goals and dreams for too long. We are told to jump in the game of life and hold on for the ride. There is a certain amount of truth in that attitude… quite obviously.
For me, however, I believe God is guiding us along a spiritual time-line that only He can see and several factors, unknown to us, must be in place before we are open to the new direction we are to follow.
Life is such a joy and blessing to me now…on a daily basis. Whereas before my “little c” diagnosis… I took my life for granted. I had good days and bad days and didn’t see the true beauty of life that surrounded me….I literally never stopped to smell the roses.
When I tell people I would not like to return to the pre-cancer Becky… I usually get a startled look. But life has become so much bigger, deeper, fresher, richer for me… with blessings falling like rain… the intensity of life has gone from an old black and white movie to 3-D and I don’t want to return to the loss of communication with God that kept me seeing the world in only dull routine colors.
Just like my one late-bloomer from my moon flower this season…(because it wasn’t overflowing with blooms)…the event made it more special than ever before. Last year…I began taking the blooms for granted and several weeks into the blooming season…I would sometimes even forget to go look and inhale the scent and magnificence of its beauty.
So until tomorrow…let us remember that sometimes when we “bloom” late…while other flowers fade…our beauty surpasses its original potential if it had bloomed “on time” and been just one flowering bloom…lost among many.
“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh
When I took pictures of these two morning glories yesterday morning I thought of this quote which has become a favorite of mine.
President Theodore Roosevelt, also expressed it quite well when he said: “Comparison is the thief of joy”
*Please continue keeping Libby in your prayers…blood problems and now a broken wrist…not what one’s vision or plans were for this time in life …
Walsh, Mollie, and the boys stopped by for a few minutes on their way home….and I just loved it! They are just gone for a few days and the boys have grown like weeds overnight…unbelievable.
*Mollie turned around to check on the baby boys and then sent me this shot of them holding hands in the backseat.
ichaseferalcats
John Turner
Legally Ohm
Becky Dingle
I too was s bit of a late bloomer. It wasn’t until my children were born snd old enough to learn about God that my parents shamed me into at leadt giving them the opportunity to come to know God and that it was sinful to prevent them from being saved. We started going to church and within a couple of years both my wife and I joined the church and were Baptized. But I was around 30 years old and had gone to Church all my life whether I wanted to or not. So I too was a late bloomer in that respect.