Bleeding Hearts

I have always loved bleeding hearts. The buds drop from the leaves in a quiet, almost tender way, brightening a world that is tired and gray. I love the way they look like they have been opened, softened, and shaped by something unseen. There is beauty there, hiding under the green, waiting to be noticed.

The plant blooms in the early days of spring for a short season. It’s a time full of tension and anticipation. Some days are warm and sunny, convincing us that the hard days are over. But, as the saying goes here in the Midwest, “wait a minute”, and a sudden storm will roll through, dropping pounding rain, hail, or even snow. Year after year, I worry that the early flowers will be ruined, and yet somehow they thrive through the storms.

I have been thinking a lot lately about thriving and how often the most beautiful things seem to thrive in the midst of something hard.

There was a time when unexpected hardship would send me into motion immediately. I would panic first (even if I didn’t call it that), then I would move quickly into overdrive, doing everything I could to manage it all. Make the calls… fix what was broken… make it better. In hindsight, I think I was trying to fill the space so there was no room left to feel what was actually happening.

It might have looked like strength, but it felt awful. I would drop, exhausted at the end of each day, wondering if I had done enough. At the time, it was the only way I knew how to move forward.

But something has been shifting.

Recently, when something unexpected landed, I noticed a different response rising in me in place of the usual panic. For a moment, I wondered if I had gone numb… if maybe I had just learned to brace myself for impact so well that nothing really reached me anymore.

But as I journaled, I sat with my feelings and tried to map out the differences. There were still concerns and questions. There were still decisions to be made as we hurried back to our home in Iowa. But underneath all of the emotion, there was a quiet knowing that I did not have to outrun what was happening.

There was a steadiness that I can’t remember feeling before. I had an underlying sense that things would work out and we would walk through it, becoming stronger than before.

I’m not naive enough to think life would go on without adjustment. Change is hard, especially when it slaps you in the face out of the blue. And I’ve learned from recent experience that even the best-laid plans don’t usually play out without detours, or moments when I would later regret my tone or how I chose to respond.

But still… life would work out.

That kind of trust does not come from pretending things are easy. I think it comes from having lived long enough to see that even when plans fall apart, God does not. He continues to move, shaping my journey and providing in ways I would have missed if everything had gone according to my timeline. It comes from recognizing that not every disruption is destruction. I like to think that sometimes it is His redirection… sometimes His protection. Most recently, I believe it was an invitation to loosen my grip and remember Who is actually holding it all together.

Bleeding hearts do not bloom because conditions are perfect; they bloom because they are rooted well enough to open anyway. They thrive even when the season is short and the weather shifts.

I am beginning to understand that way of living and I wonder if He is showing me that the beauty of this life is often revealed in the very places we are asked to stretch and trust Him more. If every day were filled with sunshine and roses, would we stop paying attention and continue down the path alone.

I don’t have to force my way through every hard thing that comes. I can respond without spiraling and adjust halfway through the journey without abandoning myself. I can believe, even in the middle of uncertainty, that I am being carried through something, not just left to figure it out alone.

There will still be hard seasons.

There will still be moments that interrupt the plans I thought I could count on.

But there will also be this quiet, steady faith growing underneath… and that might be the most beautiful thing of all.

Be happy