For the past few years, I've chosen a "word of the year". Something to focus on throughout the year to come. A few years ago it was joy, then contentment. This years was growth. Since my birthday is close to the end of the year, I always do a lot of thinking and feeling about what this year has meant to me around this time. Actually... I do a lot of thinking and feeling all the time... but that's besides the point!
In recent weeks, I've been thinking about growth and how it really isn't all about what you see on the surface. When you plant a seed, before the sprout even pops up through the soil, there is a whole lot going on under the ground that we can't see!
In January of this year, I made a list of areas I wanted to see growth - love for my body, emotionally, relationally, financial trust, travel, creativity, etc. More recently, I was looking through the list and at first, became frustrated and disappointed in the lack of growth in these areas. But then, my mindset shifted and I was able to recognize the ways the growth is happening, just maybe under the soil.
Throughout this year, I posted a few "inspirational" tik toks about body image and though I am not constantly loving what I look like, there is a growing appreciation for this body God created. Additionally, my husband and I had some recent decisions to make that could have deceased our finances significantly but I was able to trust in Him to provide. There are many other examples I could share of growth under the soil this year, but lastly, this blog. I have been wanting to dig into my creative side and had to figure out what that would look like, but eventually just went for it.
The great thing about growth (and life) is it is ever changing. You won't be in one state forever. Pulling weeds here, cutting thorns there, planting seeds, waiting for rain, praying for sun, and again and again. We, just like a garden, are a work in progress. We go through changes and seasons.
But one thing I know for certain- Our. God. Never. Changes. If we are rooted in Him, growth will happen, in His timing.
“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”
Mark 4:3-8 NIV
You are growing.
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