Growing Things

Lately I've been thinking about growing things. Maybe this phenomenon has occurred because lately I've been pretty stuck and having a hard time with personal growth. But, there is something so precious and hopeful about something that hasn't arrived, but is on its way to being grown. Sometimes in the pruning process the outside looks a bit more like mutilation than growth. But, if you don't cut down the wild direction less and diseased branches the rest of the plant will suffer in the long run.
The other day i was sitting at home listening to the familiar sounds of my apartment and surfing the internet when I heard a not so familiar sound. It was a little chirp, but I thought I was imagining it until my roomate came in tenderly and held up a small box and said, "Surpise!" I looked eagerly into the shoe box and found a little black speckled chick. It was adorable, and this fragile being that needed our care. We rescued it from a teenager, its a long story, but I'm sure you can understand the need. For the next couple days we fussed over our chick and tried our best to care for it. The first night I had a dream that it died because it was too cold, so I woke up and rushed into the bathroom to look into its new box and saw it sleeping soundly its little furry body moving slightly with its chick breaths. All the sudden there was this great visual, a little growing thing. Its been hard for me to find hope lately and Percy the chick really helped me to remember that as long as we're growing there is hope. Sometimes I just want to find the fix for my failings, or for other peoples failings and forget that I have often left out the part where Grace enters into the picture. The grace of growing things is that they are working towards a better picture of who they were meant to be, but it is ok that they are not there yet. In my perfectionist mind I often get stuck on the ways I am not right and then I'm paralyzed. I feel hard and distant from God who I assume is disappointed in me. When in reality he is waiting in love, and correcting me perhaps, in love, wanting to embrace me even though I'm covered in sin, if i am willing to let Him in and trust Him. This lesson is a difficult, and good. But, i must remember that I too am a growing thing. That when I look at a little growing flower, a little growing chick, I see something precious and beautiful and I don't dislike them because they are not blooming or full grown chickens. In the same way when God looks at me he sees a growing thing and he loves me as that. What a comforting thought, and this thought saves me daily.