Blooming Where We are Planted

2 Corinthians 10:12b but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

     An ancient legend tells of a king who walked into his garden one day to find almost everything withered and dying. After speaking to an oak near the gate, the king learned that he was troubled because he was not tall and beautiful like the pine. The pine overheard their conversation and added that she, too, was upset, for she could not bear delicious fruit like the pear tree. The pear tree heard his name and began to complain that he did not have the lovely odor of the spruce. And so it went throughout the entire garden.

     Near the very edge of the garden grew a little daisy. As the king approached, he noticed her bright little face, full of life. “Well, little flower,” said the monarch, “I’m glad to find that there is at least one happy face in my garden.”

     “Oh king,” she said, “I know I’m little, and not many people notice me, but one day I realized that you if planted me here, you must have had a good reason. So, your majesty, I’ve determined to be the best little flower I can be!”

     Who among us has not, at one point or another, compared ourselves to something we admired in someone else and found ourselves lacking? When I was in high school, my aunt used to send my mother the clothes my older cousin didn’t need any longer for me. My cousin was tall, long body and long legs. I was short, possessing neither long body nor legs. I could not wear her clothes unless my mother took them apart and remade them for my smaller body. My cousin was also beautiful, had awesome blond hair and was a teen model for a large department store. To me, it looked like she had it all and I got the hand-me-downs. You can imagine what that did to a teen girl already struggling to survive in a critically dysfunctional home. I felt I didn’t measure up.

     This wasn’t my cousin’s fault, she had no idea I felt this way. As adults, we have discussed this. I was surprised to learn her mom always compared her to her younger sister and she felt she was the odd duck that didn’t measure up.

     If you are determined to compare yourself to others, you can easily find someone prettier, smarter, richer, more educated, sweeter, more talented in something you always wanted to do but can’t, funnier and more ‘successful’ by worldly standards.

     We must come to a place where we trust that God has a reason for creating us the way He has and has planted us in just the place he desired. Not one of us is greater than the next. Comparing ourselves with one another will only make us wither. When we become satisfied in His creation (that is us), that’s when we’ll find true happiness... and we will shine like the little daisy in the story above.

    A garden is not defined by one plant alone but by the complexity and beauty the variety of specimens contribute and the love and nurturing care the gardener uses to oversee the garden. Let’s give God our all our disappointments and be determined to be the best that we can be for Him! He’s the Master Gardener; let’s grow where He planted us into what He created us to be.