A Gentle Reminder

Sometimes I get excited about really small things.

Like seeds.

Especially these seeds.

These are seeds that I saved from a tomato that grew in my garden last summer. The fall before, I drove out to Milwaukee to visit my Opa in hospice. During that visit, in one of our last conversations, my Opa told me how to save tomato seeds. My Omi sent me home with a few amazing, red tomatoes from their garden. I saved some seeds from those tomatoes and planted them in the spring. They worked!

Now I’m planting my second generation of tomatoes hailing from my grandparents’ garden. I love these guys.

I wonder if I’ll ever stop being amazed. There is so much life potential held in each seed.

This year I planted my tomato seeds and then went away for the weekend. The Sunday afternoon that I arrived home, I found myself checking on the dirt pods at least four times in a span of three hours. Nothing had happened. (I guess email is not the only thing that I check compulsively.)

After a few more days, miracle upon miracle, signs of life began popping up.

Seeds are amazing.  So is the new life that emerges from them.

New life.

Staring at those tiny seedlings, I realized that there is new life in me, stirring in my soul.

Sometimes I get impatient  because I can’t see the outcome. I can’t see the fruit. I feel small and insignificant.

A full-grown tomato would crush these seedlings. They are not yet ready to bear their fruit.

But new life is emerging and new life takes time. The fruit will come another day. Unlike tomato plants, we may not know or see the fruit that our lives bear.  Lean into the growing.  Give yourself time.

We are surrounded by gentle reminders if we are paying attention.