Some people call them God-winks or glimmers. You know, the silver lining that every storm cloud has. Those small happy moments that show you everything is going to be ok.
I call them turnips.
Why? Because they’re signs that things are starting to turn up!
This phrase was born out of my need to turn everything into a pun, a trait passed down to me and a responsibility I don’t take lightly.
It was also born out of my human need to believe that good things are always on the way.
What started as a silly message that my fingers typed out before I could think (“things will turnip soon!! 🧅🧄”) became a phrase I couldn’t get out of my mind for days. And as I pondered why and even resorted to researching turnips in my free time, I came up with turnip theory.
turnip theory 101
First let’s review. “Turnip” is a (somewhat) clever play on words that can be used in a sentence as a substitute for “turn up” or as a noun to describe the little bits of joy we find in everyday life (a synonym for glimmer or God wink as previously mentioned.)
But let’s go a little deeper. There is something about the way turnips grow that fascinated me.
A turnip starts as a small seed, quickly sending down roots while leaves emerge above ground. In secret, a bright bulb starts to form beneath the surface, absorbing water and nutrients from the depths of the soil. The timeline is always unpredictable, but at just the right time it will be ready to pull up. Without fail, no matter how long it takes, as the roots deepen, the bulb expands and eventually is ready to harvest.
I read all that and I thought. The promised plant was no less there just because you couldn’t see it.
the metaphor
In seasons of waiting, all of our hearts and minds yearn to make sense of what we don’t know. We try to fill in the blanks and search for anything that can offer us a place to stand and catch our breath. So we set our eyes and our hopes on the surface of this broken land. I’m speaking from experience.
But broken land is always shifting. It falls away before we even realize it was all that was holding us up. In less poetic terms, we have a tendency to put our hope in the things we can see, which makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is putting all our hope in people that may fail us, in promises that may be broken, or a dream that may not come true. Why hope in these things, when there is so much depth and beauty and promise beneath the broken surface.
The promised plant was no less there just because you couldn’t see it.
Instead of standing on the broken land, trying to plant the garden of our lives on the crumbling dirt, we must seek the mysterious depths of good soil. We must send our roots deep, drawing from the nutrients that have been there for us all along. This good soil and these life-changing resources come only from the Father, and the depth of His heart.
While He does most of the work, we still have an important, garden-defining role to play. We must do the work of digging deep beneath the surface. We must offer up the small seeds of hope and faith we have, leaving our desires, hopes and dreams with Him. He’s worthy of holding it all.
And then we wait. This might be the most difficult part. Again, I’m speaking from experience.
But like we can learn from the turnip, we won’t always see growth as it’s happening. Even when we can’t see it, God is still working beneath the surface and beyond our knowing. He prepares beautiful gifts for us according to His perfect will, better than anything we could ask for or imagine.
We may not know what He’s preparing or the moment we’ll see things come together, but we can put all our hope and trust in the fact that things will “turnip” soon. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t coming soon.
