I’m joining today with the Five Minute Friday community of writers who write for 5 minutes about a one-word prompt.

Today’s writing prompt is EXPLORE.

Earlier this week, a friend and I ventured to Carmel, Indiana to celebrate Jordan Lee Dooley and her new book launch.

It was such a fun night filled with community and connection that I hadn’t known I was craving until we stepped through the venue’s doors. Although I did break my friend’s champagne glass on accident, and that was a bit embarrassing.

But amidst all the glass breaking and the fun, we got to listen to Jordan share her heart behind her new book, Embrace Your Almost. The main point of her message was that we can only grow where we’re planted, not where we want to be.

God still has things for us to faithfully tend to in the right here, right now, even if it’s not where we thought we’d be or even where we want to be.

She told us to picture our lives like a garden and posed the question, what is it in your life that you want to tend to?

Not what you think you should tend to or what other people want you to cultivate. But what do you really want to grow in your life right now?

It’s been a few days since the event and that question is silently haunting me, because the reality is, I’m at a place in my life where I really don’t know what I want to tend to.

My life hasn’t looked the way I thought it would recently, and there have been moments where I’ve wished it wasn’t the way it is.

But I keep going back to Jordan’s words; God has things for me to faithfully grow right here, right now.

And perhaps this season is an opportunity for me to take a few steps back and analyze what it is I really want.

Oftentimes in the Bible, Jesus would respond to someone’s question with another question. Those questions usually were: What do you want? What do you want me to do for you?

I sense Him asking me those same questions, and while I don’t have an answer for Him yet, I’m acknowledging the truth that I have the freedom and the space to take my time answering Him so I can answer His questions honestly.

Spring is a time of new growth; change and reemerging from winter’s rest. And while I wish the flowers would just bloom already and summer would come rushing in, spring takes its time.

So, in this season of my life, I’m going to take a lesson from spring and explore what it is I truly want to grow in this garden of my life.

As I sit with these thoughts and these questions, the words of Isaiah 58:11 come to my mind,

“The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.”

I’m holding tight to the promise that God will guide me and water the garden of my life continually and faithfully, even as I sift and hold the tension of not really knowing what I want to grow yet.

Because the reality is, as long as I hold fast to Him, growth is inescapable.

xo,