Blooming from our messses does not happen in an instant. You know that life gets messy sometimes. And sometimes we’re a mess. I think you can relate to circumstances spinning out of grasp, leaving us jumbled and frustrated. Some days we’re just muddling through, just waiting to collapse on the couch.

Recently when I planted my annual flowers, I certainly made a mess. Those delicate baby plants had to feel tumbled and tussled as I tucked them in decorative pots. I uprooted them from their flimsy plastic containers and gave them room to breath in their new earthen homes. But at first they looked wilted. Pitiful. Hopeless.

In time, regular water and sunshine helped the young flowers recover into full blissful bloom. But the transplanting process they endured left a scattered mess of leftover soil and discarded seedling containers.

From Messy to Magnificent

Growing into a blissful full bloom in our own lives often starts as a mess. New jobs seem impossible, doctors order tests, aches and pains invade, kids act out, spouses close down, another date dead ends, bosses expect perfection . . . . Yet somehow under the pressure and struggles our character grows, our soul gains resiliency.

Author Alice Walker describes our wriggling transformation from messy to magnificent, from wilting to full bloom: “There is always a moment in any kind of struggle when one feels in full bloom. VIVID. ALIVE. To be such a person or to witness anyone at this moment of transcendent presence is to know that what is human is linked, by a daring compassion, to what is divine.”

As we wait and keep bending through our messes, a VIVIDness and ALIVEness arises from our wilted state. Stretch by stretch. Fresh sunrise to sunrise, we in our own time blossom into beauty.