I turned 35 this past June. Christy and I have a friend that gave me a pair of bean plants for my birthday, a sweet gift, even if I don’t have a very green thumb. There were three of them, little snips from an existing plant. I was convinced that they were going to die a horrible death, because I’m so incompetent when it comes to keeping plants alive. Granted, one of them didn’t make it past the first week. This was taken in July

Still, I watered them. I knew that since they were snips from another plant that were placed in some good dirt, that they would need time to grow a root system. I wondered if they were still alive for a long time, because there was no real growth upwards. It took some time, but my baby plants started to grow a little bit. And good gracious did they GROW!

You see, sometimes growth isn’t visible. Growth might not be obvious to us, to other people, but in reality, we’re building a system of roots to give us a strong foundation. If it wasn’t for a strong root system, we’d topple over the next time I jostled the planter too hard. With a little sunlight, water, and nurturing, these plants grew their root system. And once they started growing, they sprang up. Quickly!

Once we are ready, we can work on ourselves in visible ways.

In late October, due to the direction our apartment window faced, the sun started shining on them less and less. For a few weeks, I didn’t know what to do with them, because they started to droop a little bit. Well, I wasn’t going to let them die without a fight! So what do I do? I order a few grow lights from Amazon. Because bean plants are totally what most people order grow lights for, am I right?

My point?

Sometimes growth isn’t visible. Sometimes we need a little help to grow. Sometimes growth can happen in the hands of the least green-thumbed person, simply because that person pumped love into an improbable situation.