a small bud blooms

A year and a half ago, a friend sent this picture and a word from the Lord to me.

She wrote that while outside trimming her hydrangeas she had an overwhelming urge to send me these words, not her thoughts, but words from the Lord…

See the dead flower at the top? Follow the stem down and see the fresh green bud waiting to flower? The Lord says “Let go of the dead dried up flower because I’m giving you this fresh new beautiful flower. You won’t see it until you cut the dead one off.”

The Holy Spirit used her obedience {this was not a normal thing for her to do} to speak powerfully to me. I wept at the words. Words I knew were meant for me. I had a lot of dead in my life at that moment. And I knew the cutting, the severing what was dead would be painful.

For me, the dead flower was my expectation of what my life would look like. Specifically, it was my husband and I working in church ministry. We had felt God had called us to move to California for ministering to the church here. For 3 years we had walked a hard journey believing the dream of pastoring would be fulfilled. But, that dream was dead. And I kept staring at the dead dream wishing and begging God to bring it back to life.

Instead He asked me to let it go. To cut it off.

But…why God I cried? Why when you called us here so specifically? Why when our hearts are for this? For you in this? God…this doesn’t make any sense!?

Trust, he whispered…

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3;5 {emphasis mine}

I love when our beloved King finds personal ways to speak to us. For me, that picture of a hydrangea was a sweet message from him. He knows hydrangeas are my favorite. They hold special meaning for me. They represent dreams given up long ago…

It was scary to ‘cut’ off my dead dream. My dead hopes and ideas and expectations for my future. It felt safer to stare at the dead flower wanting it to come back to life. The new bud was unknown. Only God knew what that one would look like. Did I trust Him enough to cut the dead one off for good?

Eventually, I surrendered. I let go of what I thought was the next step in our story, and let God bring about something new. It’s hard to even put into words all that God has done for my husband and I in this new season. He has placed a new song in my heart and a new dream. It looks nothing like I thought it would, and yet, it’s perfectly tailored to my heart.

My husband and I started a new ‘design and build’ business, The Yellow Chair, with nothing more than the talents God placed in us. Literally nothing.  At the time, I was an artist with a innate skill to design things and Mike could build just about anything. We loved giving homes second chances to be lovely…that was it. Small beginnings. A small bud on the stem.

 It wasn’t easy, but God breathed life on it and it has flourished, bloomed.

We design and renovate people’s homes and we love what we do. Our separate talents compliment each other, and we happen to work really well together!

We find ourselves ministering to not one church but the bigger Church. We find ourselves caring for people our paths might never naturally cross. We are  able to share our testimony to those that might never step inside a church building.  It’s astounding to me that day after day we have work, and it is good work.

Practical work and kingdom work all mixed together.

Work that fulfills both Mike and I separately as well as together.  I am amazed at what He has done once I let go of what I thought it was supposed to look like, once I cut off the dead. I now can see.

Friends, is there something dead in your life hindering a new bloom that our good God desires to bring forth? It’s so hard,so scary, to let our old dreams go. But if we can just trust in the one who planted us, we will find He knows how to bring forth life after death.

-Kallie