The warm weather came and teased us a bit last week. The 70 degree temperatures brought thoughts of garden centers and patio pots – but wait, put the brakes on that thought – it’s only March.
Today driving up 6A in a gentle spring rain, I was thinking about my awful impatience with things I know need time to work themselves out. Patience has never been a virtue of mine when it comes to getting things done, problems solved, or ducks in a row. (I always have a stray duck that tries my patience so you’d think I’d be used to this by now.)
Suddenly tiny seed pots filled with rich black soil came to mind. I thought of how carefully my kindergarteners used to plant three sunflower seeds in those pots. They would water them and place them on the window sill. The next morning they’d rush in to check their plant, fully expecting a flower to have sprouted overnight. I used to laugh and then sit down and map out a life cycle chart to ease their anxiety that their seed surely died.
Back in that day I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there would be no flowers in the pots the very next day. Yet, in life, I sow seeds in many forms and expect a flower the very next day. Nature is nature, whether it’s a flower seed, a word seed, or a picture seed. Water, sun and time are needed for all growth to take place. Ideas and feelings, like sunflower seeds, spend time softening and pushing open the seed case underneath the dark, black, moist soil in the heart. It’s takes time to push itself through to the surface to finally find the sun in the mind.
When we planted our seeds in the classroom, even the children understood that we were going to leave them alone over on the window sill and go back to our work. We were not going to stand wait for them to grow. Once we watered them each day, we would leave them to their silent germination. So it is in life. We sow seeds in hearts and we must go on our way and tend to our work. Leave them in silent germination. Trust God to water them and soften the seedcases.
Tomorrow I’m going to Agway and get seeds and soil to plant something. I’m going to place the pot where I can see it every morning. I will call it my patience pot. I’m going to grow a patience plant to remind me of how nature and God work in the soil and the heart. (For certain my family will be chuckling here, as both plants and cooking, for me, result in a lot of dry, shriveled, black things.) But, as the yoga teacher said today, we shouldn’t say “Why me?”, but “Try me! Bring it on!”
And so, as another day goes by, yes, you can grow patience – just don’t forget to water it, and….I have written.
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