Bloom Where You Are Planted

People tell me I have no sense of adventure. I can see their point. I have lived my entire life within a 20-mile radius. I didn’t go away to college and I have never traveled much. I did not plan my life that way, but any plans I had to get out to see the world just did not materialize. At this point, raising my two children is all the adventure I need in my life!

Change is an ever-present reality. God and life always seem to throw curveballs. There is nothing wrong with change, especially if God is calling you to do something different with your life. Many times, though, people seek change simply for the sake of change. They are always looking for the next adventure. St. Augustine wrote “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.” That restlessness is part of the human condition. We tend to always be looking around the next bend to find our joy. When I graduate from college, things will be better. When I get a good job . . . When I get married . . . When I have a child . . . When the children leave . . . When I retire . . . The contentment that we seek always seems to be one step away.

In “The Power of Solitude,” Annemarie S. Kidder writes of the Benedictine emphasis on stability. Benedictines

promise to remain for life with the same community in time and place. . . According to Esther de Waal, scholar of Benedictine spirituality, stability puts an end to ‘the bewildering and exhausting rushing from one thing’ and one place to another. ‘The man or woman who voluntarily limits herself or himself to one building and a few acres of ground for the rest of life,’ she says, ‘is saying that contentment and fulfillment do not consist in constant change, that true happiness cannot necessarily be found anywhere other than in this place and this time.’

This reality holds true even for those of us who have not made a vow to a religious community. We may have made a vow in marriage to stay with our spouse “until death to us part.” The temptation is certainly there when things are difficult to think that life would be better with a different partner. Yet we can choose to focus instead on the good in our spouse and in our own marriages. We can choose to make the most of what we have.

We may look at our daily work and become frustrated that we are not doing more, better, different work. We may become tired of taking care of the children and the house or the 9 –5 grind at the office. It is easy to think that life would be better anywhere else. Sometimes we might just want the world to stop so that we can get off and rest a bit.

It is important to have moments of rest, to nurture one’s soul through prayer and to take care of our bodies with diet and exercise and adequate sleep. It is also important to realize that if we pray to do God’s will each day, that we are right where we are supposed to be. Yes, God may invite you to some new opportunity, but God may also be asking you to serve him right where you are. St. Therese wrote that “[Jesus] willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when he looks down at his feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.”

Each of us is called to bloom in whatever circumstances we may find ourselves in. We are invited to find our peace and joy serving God in the places where we live and work and pray.