The best part of all the rain we’ve been getting recently is that my garden is thriving during these summer months. I can’t keep up with all the hydrangea blooms in my backyard. Last week, I cut two beautiful stems from my garden to enjoy in my living room. They were full, vibrant, and a beautiful shade of purplish pink — just like the hydrangeas I’d cut weeks before and placed around my house in vases.

But these blooms wilted within two days. I was shocked, and I couldn’t figure out the reason. I did the same thing with these blooms as I have always done. I emptied the water, thinking maybe a fresh fill would help. But as I emptied the vase, I noticed something white wedged at the bottom.

The vase had a narrow neck, so I couldn’t see it clearly. But when I reached inside, I felt it. It was a paper towel. I quickly remembered how I stuffed paper towels deep down in this vase when I had used it to hold some fake flowers last year.

And in that moment, it hit me… that old paper towel had been soaking up the water. I couldn’t see it, but it was there competing for the water meant for my hydrangea blooms.

My poor flowers never had a chance. It wasn’t their fault. They were dying because something hidden was stealing what was meant to nourish them.

And I wondered: How many of us are walking through life like that?

Doing everything “right.”

Reading our Bibles. Going to church. Praying. Showing up.

But we still feel wilted and drained, as if our soul is stuck in a state of survival.

When we feel like nothing is working, we strive to do more. We search for an answer on Google or explore another version of spirituality just to feel alive.

But what if the thing we actually need to do is to look inside the vase — find the root cause within ourselves? What if it wasn’t about doing more or adding something, but removing what has been blocking our growth?

The childhood wound you never processed.
The hidden addiction that has you bound.
The unforgiveness that follows you around like a shadow.
The shame that causes you to shrink and silence yourself in rooms.
The idols that you hold so close.

We try to suppress or ignore them, we try to fake it for a while to survive — but those things are stuck to the walls of our souls. These blockades don’t go away just because we can’t see them. Sometimes it’s in the most beautiful and flourishing seasons of life that you’re reminded of those paper towels deep within that are keeping you stuck.

I believe God allows these moments of awareness that something is blocking our nourishment so we can begin to walk in wholeness.

We can’t heal what we refuse to see.

The woman at the well had a lot of hidden pain and trauma stuffed down deep in her soul — until Jesus met her on a hot afternoon. He offered her Living Water that would give her the life she had been searching for.

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
John 4:15-18 ESV

Before she could receive the Living Water, He asked her to first dig deep into her own story.

The hidden and painful parts of our lives that we don’t want to share — Jesus sees them. Just like He did for the Samaritan woman, Jesus invites us to look within, to clear out the things that have been draining the life out of us so He can pour good things into us, fill us to overflowing so we can thrive again.

Growth and abundant life are ours when we trade our trauma for His Truth. Make room for His Word to go deep and bear fruit.

The reason you keep repeating history and making the same bad choices isn’t because you lack wisdom but because of the old patterns of thinking that you haven’t surrendered to God. Jesus wants to help you rid yourselves of those old paper towels.

Will you do the deep inner work of looking within and removing the things that the Holy Spirit reveals?

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Psalm 139:23-24 NIV

Listen to Simi’s devotion here or on your favorite podcast app!

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