A few years ago when Cale and I moved to Phoenix, I was really struggling with adjusting to the new life we were building. I felt alone, unknown, and incredibly uncomfortable. On top of that we found out we were pregnant, and I felt like everything I had known was just gone. I was in unknown territory on every front, and I could feel my spirit scrambling to find some sort of solid ground. I remember Cale would consistently pray over me that I would be able to thrive in that season. He vowed to me that he would make every effort to set me up to thrive, to position me to thrive, to war for me in prayer to thrive. I remember spending a lot of time thinking and praying about ways to do things that made me feel like I was thriving. What would it take for me to thrive?

It’s been about two years since then, and I still don’t feel like I am thriving. I’ve been so baffled as to why God would bring me somewhere where I don’t feel like I am getting stronger in my giftings or seeing crazy fruit coming out of my life. But the Lord asked me a question the other day that made me realize maybe I have been asking the wrong questions and searching for the wrong solutions these past couple of years; that maybe my expectations have been wrong all along and I’ve just been missing it.

The question was simply this: What does thriving look like to you?

My answer was that it looked like joy, abundance, success, strength. I picture flowers blooming, like in the picture above, or like fruit growing on a tree.

I looked up the definition out of curiosity and saw this: “to grow or develop well or vigorously.”

And then it hit me. Thriving doesn’t happen after growth, thriving IS growth. A tree doesn’t begin to thrive after it produces fruit, the fruit is an indication that the tree has been thriving all along. It’s the product of a thriving plant. Which means a tree can be thriving before it ever pokes its head up above the soil. It can be thriving in the winter when it has no leaves and no fruit. This doesn’t mean a tree stops thriving after it produces fruit. It continues to thrive. But thriving has seasons, and it looks different in those seasons.

My expectation of what it means to thrive will change from season to season. 

I was searching for joy and strength and success in this season as an indication that I am doing well, that I am receiving what the Lord has for me here. And since I haven’t been seeing those things, I’ve been in an internal state of panic. I haven’t been experiencing strength, I’ve been experiencing extreme weakness. I haven’t been experiencing joy, I have been experiencing daily, continual death to myself. And in place of success, I’ve been failing more then I ever have in my life.

But I felt the Lord gently nudge me to His truth. His idea of growth for us IS weakness, death to self, and being humbled. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:6) Every one of these areas pushes me to have to trust Him, to let go of control and my huge ego, to lay at His feet and say, “If you don’t come through, I am screwed.” And that posture of falling before Him, giving up all control and crying out for Him is when I am thriving deeply in the Lord. I can be assured that this season WILL produce fruit, it WILL result in a beautiful blossom, it WILL bring me to great joy. But they will be the result of thriving underground where my roots are stretching deeper, spreading wider, anchoring me more securely to my foundation on Jesus.

I hope this encourages someone today to TAKE HEART; your hidden season of growing where no one else sees, where it hurts, where it feels like you’re dying in so many places, that place IS a place of great thriving and you are creating a foundation for abundant fruit, and fruit that will LAST to grow on your branches. (John 15:16) You are right where you need to be. You’re deaths are bringing resurrection to Christ IN you. Your weakness is igniting the strength of God in its place. Your failures are guiding you to see that God is pleased with you outside of your successes.

YOU ARE THRIVING.