Fearing Growth

I bought a little greenhouse with my three year old two weeks ago in an effort to make myself a more well-rounded person.  (Side note: I am already quite well-rounded physically, especially being 5+ months pregnant, but this is an effort to bring my character more in line with my body shape.... :-P  )

I was never the grower in the family throughout childhood, and a recent trip back home reminded me of this.  I decided that I needed to step up to the plate and try to plant some useful greenery.

My son stood alongside me as I dirtied my fingers dropping teeny-tiny basil seeds into our little greenhouse.  There were 72 little soil patches, and most we filled with basil.  My son had also decided he wanted to plant some nasturtium, so the last six or so pads got to have a nasturtium seed.  I put the greenhouse, covered, in the kitchen window and waited.... somewhat hopeful, somewhat fearful.

Three days passed and I started to panic.  There were no signs of growth.  Surely I'd done something wrong.  My husband rolled his eyes and chuckled.  He calmly slid the original seed packets from under the greenhouse, since I had kept them for just this very reason, and pointed out that the plants were not expected to germinate for 5-10 days.  Oh.  Right.  No problem....  We'll just see what happens in the next couple of days....

Sure enough, within a couple of days, I started to see green.  Within a day or so, every single one of the pads had a green shoot popping out of the brown soil.  Success!!

Or is it?  The more I looked at the sprouting green, the more fearful I became.  Suddenly I was faced with a terrifying dilemma: what now?  72 plants??  Oh my gosh.... what am I going to do with 72 plants?!

Then it set in... I was doomed.  I looked at this growth and all I could feel was fear.  Surely within weeks I would kill them all.  It would have been better if they had never even gotten this far.  How on earth will I keep them alive??

The more I think of it, the more I see that this is a great metaphor for certain things in our lives--we fear growth because we know it means change thereafter.  And we don't really know how to take those next steps--or where it will lead.  At this point, I get chills just looking at my little greenhouse.  Every day the shoots are growing and I'm scared to think of what will happen next.  Where will I eventually put them?  How will I keep them alive?  What if I kill them all....?!

I suppose only time will tell.  I hope that my little garden metaphor for life can be a reminder to me to calm down and remember the hope I have.... that God, who gave me the strength to get this far, will give me all that I need to continue on and do what He's called me to do.  At least, the theory works in life--I'm not sure how exactly that will play out in my garden.  We'll see!