Re-potting Plants

If you've never planted seeds in a pot before the process usually starts with a small plant pot. I love the itty bitty ones you can get from the home improvement store they're precious and make me wanna say girly things like "awwweee it's so leetle! it's a baaaybeeee!" Haha. So when planting you sometimes start with a small pot and then the little plant is watered and given the sun that it needs to grow and eventually it graduates! You get it a bigger pot! The process continues until its graduated a couple times and then eventually you could plant it outdoors so that it has ample space to throw down its roots and take in the sun. People who garden know that it's no easy task to maintain healthy plants whether they be beds of flowers or vegetables. There's a lot of care that goes into maintaining the soil and making sure if it's been relatively dry in the forecast that the plants get the water they need. There are people who garden their whole lives to maintain the grounds of important estates; I'm thinking Downton Abbey style. How do you think they keep the outside of places like that looking beautiful?! Especially when you have plants that come from different parts of the world that aren't native to the environment they've been placed in.

So I've talked a lot about the whole gardening business probably more than I needed to but, hey, I was on a roll. What I'm really wanting to talk about here is something that has been on my mind for the past couple days and has been popping up over the past couple months. I'm kinda using the plant talk above as a metaphor so bear with me.

You have to give people room to grow. Simply said, not as easily done. I know in my own experience when I have been stunted by friends or family who aren't giving me room to grow or allowing me the chance to grow. Not only have I experienced this I have observed it happening around me lately and in some ways I have heard it referenced to in church. We as humans will continue to grow and be molded and change until the day we die. Physically there's not much we can do to stop another person from growing old, but when it comes to growing emotionally, mentally, behaviorally, and spiritually, these are all things that can be affected in one person by the influence of another person, a lot of these things being metaphysical. I'm seeing a lot of hurt caused by people's inability to let another person grow. It's like re-potting plants. Here's this little sprout which has the capacity to become something big and beautiful but if the potter doesn't lend a hand in re-potting the plant and giving it new soil then it will not thrive. So here we are as humans coming in constant contact with other humans. We have the ability to help a person to thrive in their growth as an individual or we can choose to only see them as they are or once were and expect them to stay that way. It hurts me to see people shut down by other people because they can't see past their own narrow mindedness. Are we not to push each other towards Christ? Are we not to encourage one another in brotherly & sisterly love? I know that there are some beautiful influential people in my life who constantly encouraged me to push on and push forward and even when I still had mud in my eyes they saw past my current state or they saw the depths of my heart, the desire to change, the desire to grow, the desire to do good. Even if I couldn't see it they saw it in me and encouraged me to see past my own stumbling blocks. It's beautiful really. They spoke truth. They spoke life. Words carry so much more weight than we tend to realize.

But really what I'm trying to get at here is this: If you preemptively decide that your husband, your wife, your sister, your brother, your friend, or your coworker or anyone you know is going to do the same things they have always done wrong then you're part of the problem. (ooh that was harsh but I'm not saying this to single anyone out I'm also having some personal realizations as well.) I'm talking these things could be effecting you directly or indirectly. They could be seen as mistakes or bad choices or whatever. I'm gonna bring it back home to a personal level just because it's the best real life experience I can think of to share rather than making a scenario up. So my little sister and I were never close. Like she had a chip on her shoulder and I had one on mine. We've talked about this on countless occasions so I know that it's ok to share this because it's a testament to how beautiful our relationship is now. So my sister and I are opposites. I'm an extrovert, she's an introvert, I'm enjoy performing arts, she enjoys visual art, I like sports, she'd rather read a novel, so on and so forth. To keep things short I will say this, I came home with an open mind and open heart, and she received me as her sister with an open mind and open heart. Here we were back in August with room to grow. We potted our relationship in a bigger pot together allowing each other the room to flourish. I think sometimes what holds us back from letting another person grow is bitterness or sometimes it's just simply deciding that you know that person and how they are or how they were and who they will be. Shallow thinking. God has given us incredible potential and He delights in our growth whether that growth happens in an instant or takes a handful of times to learn and grow or hey, it may take years. Sometimes it takes people half their lives to learn and grow in certain areas of their lives. It could take 21 years like it took my sister and I. If I went into each encounter with my sister expecting her to be the same person day to day I wouldn't be helping her because I would continue to treat her as the same person. But my baby sister is growing up every day, she's right on my tail and I have the amazing privilege to be there for her, encouraging her to reach for the potential I know the Lord has for her life. I'm not saying that it's all sunshine and daisies constantly, we still have our moments where we expect an action or reaction a certain way because that's what we have known for so long and have been so wrapped up in it that we are still personally breaking those habits. But, I know she has the potential to grow and change just as she knows I have the potential to grow and change.

It helps no one to bitterly comment about how that person will always make the same mistakes or hurt you in the same way or choose badly every time. But, it does help to encourage and help the other person transfer their potted plant into a bigger pot. Eventually the ideal is to plant those potted plants into the ground so that there is infinite possibility and potential for growth. That's what I hope to give my husband someday. I hope to help him grow and in return I hope and pray he does the same. Never giving limitations because our God is phenomenal and He can change a heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

So I guess this is another thing I'm learning about relationships recently. I would hate to have a limit or brand put on me that stunts my growth so I don't want to do the same to another person. I don't want to be too quick to assess where a person is spiritually or emotionally or mentally because only God knows the depths to that person and judgement is not my job. So friends I guess those are some of my thoughts on this. I'm terribly sorry it was such a long post! So much to write about! But if you stuck through it, if you have experienced this yourself I'd love to hear from you.

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