🌻 Give It Room to Bloom

Takara made me cry this morning.

She was reading me the speech she prepared for the Hope for Her Panty Tea Party, and she told a story about a sunflower she planted. She named her Sunny.

Takara sang to Sunny every day. She prayed over her, watered her and gave her all the care she thought a sunflower could possibly need. But Sunny wasn’t really growing. She certainly wasn’t blooming.

Then Takara left town for 11 days.

When she came home, Sunny had grown.

The flower Takara had been loving, encouraging and watching so carefully finally began to bloom when Takara wasn’t there.

God was teaching her something: sometimes you have to give what you love enough room to grow.

That lesson wasn’t only about a sunflower.

Takara also spoke about the roots that kept her grounded through the domestic violence she survived. Her mother taught her strength, but God gave her the strength to endure, overcome and eventually use her story to help other women.

The part people admire is usually the bloom. They see the woman standing tall, helping others and creating something beautiful from what she survived.

They don’t always see the roots.

They don’t see how far those roots had to reach in the dark. They don’t see the storms they held through or the days when growth was happening beneath the surface, where nobody could applaud it.

This week reminded me that healing takes many forms.

On Thursday night, Takara and I went to iSMASH with Faith Based Fitness Bus—Faith, as we call the bus—to help smash out the stigma surrounding mental health. I was excited about the cause, of course. But if I’m being completely honest, Rainey had given me several reasons that week to want to beat the crap out of something.

Sometimes healing is quiet prayer and deep roots.

Sometimes healing is putting on safety gear, picking up something heavy and smashing the mess out of whatever is in front of you.

Both can be holy.

Then on Saturday, we gathered for the Hope for Her Panty Tea Party. The Faith Based Fitness Bus advisory board collected more than 100 packages of underwear for girls, boys and women living in group homes and domestic violence shelters.

Underwear may not sound like a grand gesture. It isn’t glamorous, and it probably won’t be the first thing anyone posts when talking about changing the world.

But dignity often lives in ordinary things.

A clean package of underwear says, “You matter.”

It says, “Your comfort matters. Your body matters. Your dignity still belongs to you.”

It says, “Someone thought about what you actually need.”

This article is publishing on my birthday.

Every year, I ask my friends and family not to give me gifts. Instead, I ask them to donate to the Epilepsy Society in honor of my son, Cade.

This year, I’m asking them to support Faith Based Fitness Bus.

Donate to Faith Based Fitness Bus

Faith is the bus, and Faith Based Fitness Bus is also the organization behind this work—a community using movement, ministry and service to help women heal and rise.

Maybe that is how healing works.

We break what has been holding us.

We strengthen the roots that keep us grounded.

We meet the need directly in front of us.

And sometimes, after we have prayed, watered, encouraged and done everything we know to do, we step back and give growth some room.

Sunny didn’t bloom because Takara stopped loving her. She bloomed because love finally gave her space.

That made me wonder how often we confuse loving something with controlling its growth.

As leaders, mothers, mentors and friends, we want to help. We hover. We water. We advise. We check again. We carry things that may no longer belong in our hands.

But not everything needs more from us.

Some things need room.

What are you holding so tightly that it cannot grow?

What pain needs a safe place to be broken?

Who needs a simple reminder that dignity still belongs to them?

And where might God be asking you to trust the roots you helped establish, step back and allow the bloom to happen without you?

Break what hurts.

Build what heals.

And when you have planted, prayed and watered, have enough faith to give it room to bloom.