Bloomers Are Better
We've all heard it said that we should bloom where we're planted. Make lemonade out of lemons. Play the hand that's been dealt to you. Do the best you can with what you've got. As an author, I get tired of hearing the same old phrases, but it all boils down to the same idea: Don't wish for an ideal circumstance, when your present situation has all the potential to be ideal.
I've recently moved from city life, with all its restaurants, stores, and 24/7 availability of so much. It was a good life, it really was. My wife and I settled into the city lifestyle, though we had previously always lived in small towns.
Now we have been 'planted' in a small town again, and I'd forgotten how good it can be. We have butterflies, a couple dozen outside our door every day, and fireflies in abundance every night. Our former city didn't have that, since they sprayed regularly for mosquitos. There are millions more stars in the sky, it seems, since there are fewer street lights. I already know the postmaster, the grocery owner and his wife, the mayor, the owner of our one restaurant, and the pastors of all but two of the seven churches within the city limits.
People wave to every car they pass, and speak to everyone they meet on the street or see in the stores.
Jesus told a story about a famer whose seed fell on four different kinds of soil: the packed-down soil of a path, rock, ground full of briers, and good soil. You can imagine which seed grew best! When he explained the story to his friends later, it seems that each kind of soil represented an attitude toward the circumstances your life is planted in. I've decided to be good soil, ready to be happy wherever I live.
Bloomers are better.
