What If You’re Exactly Where You Need to Be? 3 Lessons on Thriving in Exile
We’ve all been there. That place in life we didn’t choose and desperately wish we could leave. It might be a new city that doesn’t feel like home, a job that feels like a dead end, a health situation that has become a wilderness, or a relationship that weighs on us like an unwanted burden. We dig our heels in, sigh a great sigh, and wonder how we ended up so far from where we wanted to be.
These seasons can feel like a personal exile—a foreign land where we feel stuck, isolated, and long to escape. But what if these unwanted detours are not mistakes? What if these periods of discomfort hold an unexpected purpose? It’s a challenging thought, but these times of exile might be the very ground where our most profound growth is meant to happen.
Your Exile Might Be Intentional
Consider the ancient story of the Jewish people in exile in Babylon, as told by the prophet Jeremiah. To help my middle and high school students in Texas grasp the shock of this event, I tell them it’s as if Canada were to sweep down, kidnap us all, and drag us north. You should see their horrified, wide-eyed expressions. "And never come back?" they ask. No, you would never come back.
But the most jarring part of Jeremiah’s message to the exiles was this: their situation was God's doing, part of God’s will. Can you imagine how that would feel? How could God ever will that a Texan be ripped from the Blue Bonnet bosom and taken to the Canadian tundra? Are you feeling indignant or at least uncomfortable? That feeling might be familiar. When we look at the difficult, uncomfortable circumstances in our own lives, it’s hard to imagine that they could be part of a greater plan.
Plant a Garden Where You Are
The crucial message for the exiles in Babylon was that their redemption wouldn’t come from being rescued from their circumstances, but by embodying those circumstances in a new way. Transformation happens within the hardship.
I know this feeling personally. When my husband Jordan dragged me from Dallas nearly five years ago, I dug my heels in and sighed a great sigh. I felt sent into exile. But then I started going to the local farmers market in Louisiana. I met Ruben and Rob, brothers who make the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had. I met Camille, who grows lettuce in a greenhouse in her backyard, and Marcus, who runs the most philosophically intentional plant nursery you can imagine. I met Rosalie, who bakes sourdough with her four children underfoot. I built a house to live in and planted a garden. Literally and figuratively, I bore a son there, and I sought the welfare of the city I’d been sent to, praying fervently on its behalf. Over time, God gave me a great love for that place and a strong community, transforming exile into home.
God didn't deliver these exiles from Babylon. But he did bless their gardens and give them many children. He did give them neighbors and a good life in a place they didn't want to be.
By actively building a life—planting gardens, bearing children, and seeking the good of the community—the exiles found that God could create a home for them right where they were. What good might be in the space where you are now, waiting to be cultivated?
Gratitude Is Your Tool for Transformation
But what if it feels impossible to find any good to cultivate? What if the ground of your exile feels too hard to plant anything new? For those moments, there is a powerful tool that can unlock freedom and healing, even when your circumstances don’t change: gratitude. In the gospels, Jesus heals ten lepers, dismissing them from their physical and social exile. But only one comes back.
He returns to thank Jesus, to acknowledge the true source of his healing. This act of returning to give thanks is the key. It shifts the focus from the problem to the provider, from the hardship to the healer. It’s in this posture of gratitude that true transformation occurs.
I wonder what returning and giving thanks might look like in your exile.
It involves a conscious decision to pay attention to the gifts that God gives despite the exile, or in the midst of it, or perhaps even because of it. This practice doesn't ignore the pain, but it refuses to let the pain have the final word. It opens our eyes to the goodness that can coexist with our hardship.
Finding Freedom Where You Are
Our circumstances may be beyond our control, but our posture toward them is not. The stories from Jeremiah and the gospels show us that God longs for us to have the courage to honestly see where we are—to sit with the discomfort and grief, to look around, and from that honest place to ask God how he seeks to free us right where we are.
What tool of his transformation there might be in our lives?
