I'm a tulip bulb.

This spring our tulips bloomed for the first time. I planted at least twenty bulbs and only three of them grew to completion, but they were so gorgeous. They were also surprisingly short lived, which is good to know for future gardening. Watching them grow and bloom though was really exciting for me, I'm just amazed by nature and the process of it all. 

When we first started going to Elevation I was coming out of a really challenging and refining season of postpartum anxiety and severe postpartum eczema, and one week pastor Steven preached a sermon called the seed is on schedule. It was during this sermon that I finally understood why people would get up and clap and shout things during his teaching because like everything he said, I was like YES! THIS IS ME! THIS IS LIFE! THIS IS EVERYTHING! AMEN! SO GOOD! Watching the bulbs grow into these beautiful flowers, having had planted them in the ground in the fall unsure if they'd do anything at all, was a miracle in itself. They grew so strong, so tall, so certain of their fate after sitting in the darkness of the dirt for literally months of winter coldness. So remarkable. If I were a tulip bulb, I'd surely wonder at some point if I had been forgotten, if maybe a mistake had been made because surely I was meant to be a tall, beautiful flower, not to spend most of my life sitting in the cold, dark earth. Which is totally how I felt in those first months of Lincoln's life. I was meant to be more, not trapped in the dark.

I see so many parallels in my pregnancies and nature and seasons, I'm so thankful for the way God has designed it all. We welcomed Lincoln in the winter, and I literally felt like a tulip bulb. Trapped in the cold, dark, earth-- unsure of my new territory, unsure of everything to come, unsure of why I was there. It was necessary for me to be there, though. I had to grow, I had to develop, I had to mature so that I could bloom and grow strong and tall as a mom, wife and woman. Although it was dark and scary at times, it was there that I became what I was intended to be, just like a tulip. 

I'm prepared for some more dark earth time, and some of this pregnancy has been that for sure. There have been moments, some days, some weeks even of darkness wondering what it will look like for me when this baby comes and what our new normal will be like. Preparing emotionally, and logistically to grow my heart with room for two has been a process that is only just beginning. I'm excited, open, expectant, and ready to bloom.