Challenges of Growing

 

I planted a few things a few weeks ago.  I was preparing to do an Instagram post and get all artsy.  There was all this prep for real life.  It was slightly absurd.  And I decided to just dig in.  Literally.  I decided that it was ok to be messy.  My fingernails had dirt under them for days.  I washed them many times, to the point of needing lotion after every wash.  Frankly, an unnatural thing for me. 

I dug in, to the messy side of life.  Once I made the decision I was gleeful.  It was exhilarating.  I dug and planted, patted, and watered with abandon.

Some of the seeds will come up.  They are finally coming up.  It’s just 2, but it’s a blessing.  I am so thankful for the rain, so I wouldn’t forget to water these fragile biological lives.  But some of the seeds won’t come up.  They were doomed from the beginning.  They were never going to be, no matter how carefully handled.

See, there are two things I take away from this.  There will be dreams, no matter how big {these are bulbs we’re talking about} that are not going to happen.  They were an idea, which was not firmly rooted.  They were doomed from the beginning.  But that does not mean that they never should have been planted, nurtured, and hoped for.  Most of all hoped for.

The same goes for the messy side of life.  There are arguments that we can dig for just the right information, argument, rebuttal.  But the thing is, were not going to win it.  Not that battle.  And that is ok.  We can not win them all.  We can not always be right, we can not always have beautiful flowers without the dirt beneath our finger nails.  For if we did not enter into the messy, we would not fully understand the challenge of growing.

I hope for those seedlings and bulbs to grow.  I want to see the dirt give way to beautiful life.  I want the reminder that beautiful things come out of the messy, hard, challenges.

The challenges are what make life a beautiful adventure.