THAT'S LIFE: Choose to bloom where you’re planted

African violets, the beautiful flowers that adorn many coffee tables and window sills, and I have a somewhat troubled history. I’m always fascinated when I come across someone who has successfully grown African Violets. You see, I once bought this beautiful African Violet plant and although I watered and fed it right, it wilted before my eyes. In dramatic fashion, it turned a rebellious brown and the single flower gave up the ghost, collapsed and died. How does one manage to single-handedly kill an African Violet, which is rumoured to be one of the easiest houseplants to grow?

The experience put me off African Violets and I never did have the courage to try again. Yet the experience taught me something valuable. Sometimes you can do everything right for a plant, a person, a situation and it simply refuses to “take.” We believe that if you raise your child right, with loving discipline, and affirmation, they will turn out right. They do but sadly, life is full of examples of the one black sheep that refused to thrive.

 My parents used to warn that the same womb and home that nurtured a doctor or a priest can also raise a serial killer. It happens. Similarly, you can love a person, treat them right and they can still walk away. You can give someone a job they need, yet they quit in a huff. It happens. You can give a company dedicated service and the best years of your life and they still retrench you.  When you have done all you know how to do, when you’ve given it your all, you have to accept that sometimes it is not about you. And where one plant or person refused to thrive, another will.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE TIMES WHEN IT IS YOU?

But what about those times when it is you? When you have been given  opportunities others would kill for and it is you, for whatever reason who refuses to bloom? What about if it is you, that sibling in your family that everyone is always rescuing while your brothers and sisters are leading independent lives? What about if it is you, that grumpy employee who always finds fault with everything in the company and sulkily wishes it would go belly under? What about that person who has received the love of a good man or a good woman and you still can’t keep it?

Blooming where you are planted is about making a decision to thrive anywhere. Whether at home or abroad. In a February 26, 2017 article titled “Trump’s is wrong – Immigrants promote economic growth” by Kevin Shih on BusinessInsider.com, he writes, “A study by Stanford economist Charles Jones found that nearly half of US economic growth since the 1950s is attributable to the increase in the number of scientists and engineers engaged in research and development. Combine this with the fact that about half of the growth in the number of scientists and engineers in the US since the 1980s was due to immigrants and it is not difficult to understand the connection between skilled immigration and economic prosperity.”

It is common when we feel we are not where we need to be, when we are somewhere against our will, to curse that place, to wilt and die there. However, a Biblical story is told of the Israelites who were taken as captives to Babylon. When God sent them a prophet, they probably hoped the news would be that they would be going home soon. However, prophet Jeremiah had some interesting things to say that we can heed, especially when we find that we are not where we wish to be. He wrote in Jeremiah 29: 5 – 7.  “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”  Powerful words. You may not be where you want to be, but you can choose today to grow, to bloom and to thrive where you are currently planted.

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