Series: Living Each Day Before God – A Journey of Purpose and Grace 

There was a time when my world became very small. A broken ankle confined me first to a bed and then to a wheelchair. I was sedentary, dependent, and physically restricted. Before I could adjust, the pandemic deepened the isolation. Visitors were limited. Movement was minimal. The days felt long and unusually quiet.

At first, it felt like loss, loss of usefulness, loss of momentum, loss of visibility. I wrestled silently with questions. What purpose can possibly come from this confinement? What can bloom in such stillness?

Then, in the quiet, I sensed a persistent prompting in my spirit: Write your story.

My immediate response was resistance. A debate began within me. I am not efficient enough. I am not talented enough. I am not equipped enough. I am not a born writer. There are so many gifted, known voices, people trained and celebrated for writing. Who was I to attempt such a thing? Comparison quickly disqualified me. I almost dismissed the prompting as imagination.

But it would not leave.

One afternoon, as I rested, I had a vivid inner vision. I saw myself walking along a rugged pathway. The ground was uneven, almost wild. Yet on either side of that lonely road, lilies were blooming, radiant, pure, untouched by crowds. They were not arranged in gardens. They were not planted for admiration. They were blooming quietly along the wayside.

I remember wondering, Who waters them? Who tends them? Who even notices them in this no-man’s land?

Then I sensed a gentle voice behind me, clear, tender, unmistakable.

“Do you know for whom they are blooming?”

I stood still.

“They are blooming along the wayside, for Me, the Creator. Can you not bloom for me?”

Those words settled deeply into my heart.

The lilies were not striving for applause. They were not competing for recognition. They were blooming because the Creator delighted in them. Their hiddenness did not diminish their purpose. It fulfilled it.

In that sacred moment, something shifted within me. Writing was no longer about qualification. It was no longer about talent, comparison, or being a “born writer.” It became obedience. It became worship. It became blooming at His feet.

Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:4, “Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Hidden does not mean unseen. Confinement does not mean cancellation. Sometimes God cultivates our deepest roots where no one else is watching.

So I began. Quietly. Imperfectly. Prayerfully. I put pen to paper, not for a platform, but as an offering. Prayer and writing became my lifeline. What felt like isolation became formation. What seemed like a restriction became a refinement.

Perhaps you, too, are in a hidden season, recovering, waiting, overlooked, confined in some way. Ask yourself: Where is God calling you to bloom quietly, even if no one applauds? What obedience is He inviting from you, not for recognition, but for Him?

Trust this: every hidden act of faithfulness matters. The Creator sees. The Father delights.

Bloom where you are planted, even in the no-man’s land. Especially there.

For in His perfect time, He causes all things to bloom beautifully.