We’re all doing it, right? During this period of heaviness, of isolation, of struggle, we are doing our best. Our best to keep it together. Our best to stay calm. Our best to honor the words of the Serenity Prayer: to accept the things we cannot change. We vacillate between hope and despair, faith and doubt, strength and weakness.
But in the midst of this emotional tug-of-war, I would argue that we are also doing something else. We are growing.
A couple months back, my family placed seeds into dirt. Put tiny containers under grow lights in our kitchen. Hoped that something would come of it. And now here we are. Where there were once seeds, there are vibrant plants. Leaves and stems and in every green shoot, constant growth. Every day another centimeter or two. Those tiny seeds have defied logic, doing the hard work of bursting out in a world where they will spend their whole lives fighting to thrive.
We didn’t expect to be planted in the middle of a pandemic. But with every day that we struggle and strive, we become stronger. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. Because we are doing it. We are getting through. Doing the things. Finding a way. And I can’t wait to see how we come out the other side. There is no doubt we will have grown. What fruit will we bear having lived this? How will we have changed? What will we have to say or do?
We will get there. Of that I am sure. To the other side of this, where the brightest sun shines down on us and welcomes us and says, “Oh, how you have grown.” I can’t wait to see what we all do on that day.
