Blooming Where I'm Planted

When I moved to Germany three months ago I was jet lagging, overwhelmed, enthusiastic, bottling up tears of homesickness (that were catching me by surprised), eager to meet my girls and find out what staff/dorm I was to join, and all of it was flying past me at a million miles an hour. Times 3! Honestly the details of those first days are about as clear to me as the scientific method, but one thing has stuck in my head that has come up many times in conversations and in my journaling. It was the Sunday three days after I had arrived at BFA and I was attending my first service at Black Forest Christian Fellowship. I was meeting tons of new people and trying to be engaged as I got whiplash from my nodding head. As the sermon began I remember thinking, “Pay attention, Larisa!” And I’m so glad I took my own advice because the sermon was on “growing where you are planted”. This theme has given shape to my first 3 months of missionary life.

The key to the message for me was an analogy of a palm tree and how it will grow wherever you plant it. Usually it is a tropical climate, but they can adapt and do well in most others (maybe not the Arctic I’ll check into that so that this metaphor doesn’t fall apart). At first I had a very romantic idea of this for myself: God and me will grow and thrive and it will be wonderful and happy…all the time…no matter what hard things happen…forever…right? Well, lets just say that God has been bringing me past that unrealistic and downright ridiculous perspective to one that is healthier.

So what was wrong with that idea? It was good that I wanted to rely on Christ for my strength and know that I wasn’t going to do it alone, but I forgot that he never promised ease for those who love him. He only said that he would “work it together for our good”. The key word here is “work”.  I have been learning that the excitement that I have for this job of being an RA, adjusting to a new life, building a reputation in a sense, and feeling very alone in a lot of it, has been part of the work that God is doing in my life and learning to completely trust him. “God is lovingly removing things I think I need, but things that may be holding me down, holding me back, or holding me captive.” (Source) 

Growing where I’ve been planted can be wonderful because I can see the growth! I can see that I’m learning to rely on Christ for my identity now. Moving into a ministry role where no one knows who I am, what God has done to get me here, or what “credentials” I have, can be really hard. (And I would like to take a quick moment to say that if you are going to do this and haven’t before its OK to feel out of place and like your identity has been stripped from you and have nothing to offer. BUT it’s false and it’s a lie that Satan will use against you! Be open with people about what God has done in your life and what skills he has given you to do the job that you are in. Take it has an opportunity to give God the spotlight.)

As a young woman on the mission field I have begun to experience the hard moments of being alone and not having my close family and friend there to bounce ideas off of or cry to. But I this has given me space to plant my own roots into Christ and what he has told me to do with this chapter of my life. So this is what planting looks like for me: allowing the challenges to come even if they make me want to crumble, because I have a God who is loving and tender with me. He has not given me anything beyond what I can handle and I trust him to prune me because, “Pruning is actually God's loving surgery to let His light go deeper into your life than it has ever gone before.” (Source)