Sometimes it seems as if my life consists of fixing cracks in plaster. The tedious process of minutely scrutinizing each section of wall to find each hairline fracture takes hours and hours. Then comes the cleaning out the crack, filling it with compound, adding a second coat on repeat. Over and over, wall on wall, to repair our house into something beautiful.

Yes, I appreciate the end result, but still, in the midst of it I can lose sight of that future beauty especially if I have a section of wall I have already worked on crack again. Frustration is easy, the question of “is it worth it” quick to pop into my mind.

The other day, in the midst of fixing yet another crack, I had this thought. Are we not like these crumbly old plaster walls? And God in his love comes to mend us. To clean out the old gunky cracks in our lives, to bring new life to old walls. But he never tires of fixing our cracks. Though we re-crack a thousand times or seem to be more cracks than solid plaster. He is there. Meticulously finding each crack. Working diligently and persistently and loving it. He never loses sight of that final picture, of what we will be. He never tires or questions “is it worth it.”

The next time I pick up the putty knife, to put In the midst of these thoughts, I realized how prone I am to treat new things in my life as though they were mature plants and not like seedlings. I feel as though, since I am an adult, everything I do should flourish and flourish immediately. But really, any new hobby, relationship, job, home, dream is a seedling. They need care and nurturing. This may seem obvious, but it goes beyond just putting in time to nurture something new. One must be patience for it may be a slow growing plant. One must provide protection from exposure to the harshness the world can easily provide. One must listen and learn to what that tender seedling needs and know that perhaps it is not in the ideal condition just yet or perhaps its strengthening its roots right now and once its ready it will spring forth with massive growth. Or perhaps, it will grow steadily. But no matter how it grows, it can grow.

As I look at the new things in my life, I need to remember this. These are seedlings and it is ok and actually to be expected that they will not behave as other aspects of my life. I must give myself grace as I learn about the new plants I’m growing.