in our landscape

When we were in Norfolk earlier this year, we went for a walk on Blakeney Point. It was there I was caught by a dandelion-coated landscape, like golden freckles on a gloomy day. It reminded me of the things that we consider a nuisance, or out of place, in our gardens (and our lives), but in the right setting have their own unique beauty.

We are all unique, with our own talents and abilities, positives and negatives, successes and shortcomings. Sometimes, we can feel out of place, where expectations of us do not tally with who we are, where our values seem alien, where we simply cannot really bloom. We start comparing ourselves with others, thinking if only we were the same size, shape, or personalities, if only we had their abilities, their confidence to do certain things, their beauty, their power. We feel limp and unsure. We feel like flowers in the wrong place.

But just because we do not match our current landscape does not mean we are not beautifully made. I always say that if God wanted you to be somebody else, he would have made you somebody else! Perhaps we don’t fit in the way we would like – or we feel at home in a different setting than the one paraded as perfect by our peers. But if we allow ourselves to be shaped in the way God wants, not the way other people think - or even we ourselves think – we can grow and glow, lighting up our corner of a difficult world.