“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” ~ Mandy Hale
Eyes downcast. Walking as though dragging hundred pound weights behind him. Hardly wanting to talk to us. We couldn’t believe or understand exactly what was happening to our dear friend when we stopped at his business for a visit. We recognized depression…but the cause? Not something definable to us.
Just a short time later, this friend and his wife packed up and moved. They moved to the place where, for years, they vacationed every summer. The place he talked about every chance he could get. The place he loved. They moved from Florida to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.
We visited them a couple of years later. And we hardly recognized him! He looked and acted 10-15 years younger. There was not even a shadow of depression anywhere in sight. He was smiling and laughing and so full of joy!
He was still doing the exact same work. He was married to the same woman. He hadn’t won the lottery. He had just moved from one place to another. He had moved to “his place” and he also found “his people” there. { Just as I talk about in my blog “Your People”—when you find one (your place or your people), you are almost sure to find the other. }
So, although he and his wife served in their church here in Florida and he was doing his “natural talent” work as a woodworker, he had not made one of the important connect-the-dot connections of living in his place. The same was true for his wife—though it took more time for her to realize it.
This transformation in our friend has never been far from my thoughts even though about 10 years have gone by. We have visited them several times now and he is still just as joyful as ever. He has memorized various Psalms and he loves to quote his favorite ones to us.
You know the scripture in Ephesians 5:19: …speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.
Well, he does. Literally. He has memorized Psalm 19 that starts off with: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” and whenever we visit, he recites it with the joy and exuberance that I did not even know he was capable of while he was living here in Florida. He was under such oppression—because he was not in his place.
And what I thought was a humorous dialogue in a conversation we had with him was when he told us of talking to a young woman who had grown up in the mountains and she hated it there. He emphatically admonished her that she was “‘living in God’s country’ and that she should feel blessed and grateful.”
I had to remind him of how he felt in Florida. And that apparently, she was not in her proper place.
{ We cannot force people to find natural exuberance and joy when they aren’t in the perfect fit for them. We can teach them to look for things to be grateful for, and to learn contentment while asking and looking for change and God’s will for their lives. }
Because when you find “your place,” being grateful and inspired and content isn’t even much of an effort anymore.
Like our friend, you will be able to fully and naturally bloom because you are in the proper soil and environment for who God created you to be.
As I’ve said, just as every plant and flower and tree has a natural habitat where they thrive best, I believe it is the same with us.
{ I really do believe that. }
Now does that mean that if we aren’t in our proper place that we can’t bloom at all? As I have said before—of course not. Sometimes there are circumstances beyond our control that put us, or keep us, in a place that we know isn’t perfectly suited to us.
Just as Paul writes in Philippians 4:12– I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
I believe we all must learn this.
Peace within.
Peace with Him.
In any place.
In all circumstances.
But I think that most of us can agree that there are some places that we find it easier to feel close to Him and where those psalms and hymns and spiritual songs bubble over from a wellspring of joy that comes very naturally.
Because we are in “our place.”
LINK: Finding Your Place: More Thoughts…and Proof!