Every dry and barren place will burst forth with abundant blossoms, dancing and spinning with delight! Lebanon’s lush splendor covers it, the magnificent beauty of Carmel and Sharon. My people will see the awesome glory of YAHWEH, the beautiful grandeur of our God.

Isaiah 35:2 TPT

This hope-filled verse was the theme of a women’s event I was invited to speak at last month. When I first read it, I thought, “How am I ever going to be able to talk about that?”  We had recently lost our Dad after a long illness, and everything seemed overwhelming. I was far from feeling like blooming much less dancing or delighting in anything.

But…Isaiah says that “every dry and barren place will burst forth with abundant blossoms.” Isn’t that exactly what we need to know when we feel like this?

When we read on, verse 3 says:        

strengthen those who are discouraged, energize those who feel defeated

I hope I can do that a little bit for some of you who might be feeling discouraged or defeated today.

Because this is not just one chapter in Isaiah. This is a theme we find consistently throughout the Bible. This beautiful, enduring theme of hope–looking forward with confidence to what God is going to do.

As I prayed and prepared to share a message with these amazing women of all ages, God helped me understand a few things that we can expect about the process of blooming and blossoming.

In order to bloom and blossom, we need to trust that Jesus is in the dirt with us.

The first thing I realized is that flowers don’t start out as blooms. A flower’s growth process begins as a seed or bulb in the dark, damp soil with lots of worms and other creepy, crawling things. This isn’t the part where there is “dancing and spinning with delight”, but this IS where we find ourselves often, don’t we? In a dark, uncomfortable place with uncertainty, frustration, and discouragement. But a lot of critical growth happens in these dark places, and I believe it is because Jesus comes really close there. He keeps us going through the dark times, and gives us real hope that guides us into his light.

In his light, we can’t help but grow.

We need this “getting into the light” part of the process so much.  We study his word, we spend time praying and listening, and we share life with others who love him. We can picture ourselves like a little seedling pushing out of the dirt and growing up toward the sun. This is where we receive more of his truth, his grace, and his guidance. We feel God’s warmth, we absorb his energy and strength, and we begin to understand more about him as he reveals himself to us. His word and his ways are so much higher than ours, and what a life-changing thing it is when we start to believe that!

We can expect to bloom, but we can also expect to be surprised…

We like to count on our plants having a regular growth cycle. We plant bulbs in the fall, and even though we don’t know exactly which day the tulips or daffodils are going to bloom–we can expectthem in the spring. When we plant pumpkin seeds in May, we can expect pumpkins in early fall.

But God is a very creative Master Gardener, and he has timelines for us and our growth that we can never predict. Sometimes he brings us into bloom when we least expect it. Even though we don’t always understand the process, we can trust him in it all. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that his plans for us are good. Always. He wants to bring us to bloom over and over in this crazy up-and-down life with him…and he will.

Isaiah 35 reminded me that when we put our hope in Jesus, we can expect his presence in the darkest parts of the process, we can expect his light to grow us, and we can expect to see his glory (and maybe even dance and spin with delight)!

Whatever part of the growth process you find yourself in today, I hope this truth encourages your heart to keep believing that God is going to bring you into bloom.