Women’s Devotional – Day 12
One of the first things that we saw when we came to tour the house that eventually became our home was a beautifully shaped Magnolia tree located in the front yard. I remember telling my husband, if we end up buying this house, I really am excited to see this Magnolia in full bloom. As Spring rolled around my excitement grew to see our darling Magnolia covered in white blooms. With great anticipation I waited, and I waited, and I waited…and nothing. Not a single bloom. With doubt I said to myself, “what am I doing wrong here? The leaves look healthy and I don’t see any issues with the branches.” However, upon further inspection, I could see that this beautiful Magnolia had been damaged. Where the center trunk should be was a stump that had been chopped down. Jutting from the stump were branches that grew upwards into this picture perfect gumdrop shape. I don’t know if it had been struck by lightning, or had been taken from disease, but I wondered if this was the reason for the lack of blooms. Perhaps my Magnolia was just too damaged, too hurt, to fill in the blank, to ever bloom again.
Sometimes following God feels exactly like this. We feel too damaged, too broken, too full of shame or grief to bloom for Him. Maybe you are striving after God but the enemy keeps hitting you with sucker punch after sucker punch trying to cripple you until you have nothing left to give. Maybe you feel like you are left with a single stump, completely worthless. That’s where I found myself in May of 2023. It was a really difficult year. We had just celebrated what would have been the 9th birthday of our son who died as a stillborn, and the grief was more overwhelming and suffocating than in years past. At the same time, we were hit with many expensive financial burdens that we were buckling under the weight of. I also experienced the pain of being betrayed by a person I thought was a friend, which made me not only question who I could trust, but whether I could ever trust others again at all. All the while I was trying to be obedient to pursue God’s call on my life as a minister to women. I was left battered, bruised, and heartbroken, wondering if the calling I had on my life was really true. The cost of living a life ministering to others started to feel like a heavier burden than I could bear.
But God! As I cried out to Him surrendering the weight of all I was trying to carry, and asking Him to intercede in these situations, I realized that He was using these circumstances to perform a work in my heart to heal areas that I hadn’t the time or the emotional bandwidth to deal with in the past. While this was extremely painful to walk through, I was reminded of His faithfulness through it all.
Lamentations 3:22-23
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
This verse reminds me that even in the midst of the Israelites’ unfaithfulness as seen all throughout the Old Testament, God remained the same. He remained faithful to keep the covenant he made with his people. Even in the midst of my circumstances I experienced His steadfast love. After I had finally surrendered it all to God and laid my burdens at His feet, I woke up that morning and noticed a single bloom on my still damaged Magnolia tree. I wept with joy at the goodness of God and when I went outside I witnessed not just one, but two blooms with more just waiting to spring to life.
Just as He was faithful in bringing a dormant Magnolia tree back to life, He will be faithful to help you bloom again. It may require pruning, humbling, surrendering, and walking through some difficult things, but on the other side, you will be in full bloom because you trusted in His promises and faithfulness.
- In what areas of your life have you seen God’s faithfulness in the past? Thank Him for those things.
- What area(s) in your life do you need to surrender to Him? What area(s) do you need to give up trying to control?
- What area(s) do you need to allow God to prune away, so there will be more fruit?
Guided Prayer