The Process of Growing

“Growth”, etched in the windows of this year, peers into my soul.  It is glaring at me, taking up the whole glass, including the framework.  There is no way around it.  No way to avoid it.  No way to ignore it.  It is there.  I must face it.  I must go through it.   In the past, when I would think about “growing”, it was invariably in a negative context.  Yes I knew growth, in the end, was positive.  However I viewed the process as negative, that having been my experience in the past and the inclination of my melancholy personality.

However, for the first time in a long time I feel a huge growth spurt staring me down, while at the same time being very hopeful, excited and positive toward the actual process, not just the end result.  Though my excitement might wane when compost is dumped on my head burying me in order that I might die to live once again, I hope to continue to view the process of dying, the  pushing up through the ground, the stretching my leaves toward the sun, and the parched days in between rain as a positive process of growing into who I am.

Growing, it’s not something I usually contemplate before it happens.  Dying, stretching, being parched, it all sounds depressing.  Yet, here I am contemplating.  It doesn’t feel depressing this time.  It feels invigorating.  You may question my sanity.  But the change in my perspective comes, honestly, mostly from the grace of God, yet also from my depressing previous growth processes.  If you loathe the processes of life, only rejoicing in the end result or victories, much of life goes by that we definitely could not call abundant!

I am sure you absentmindedly agreed with my last statement.  However, the true test is, how do you view the processes of your life?  Do you enjoy the journey to where you are going?  Or are you always looking to the next stage in life, just waiting for this stage to pass?  It’s true, it will pass.  When it does will you be able to say you walked through it enjoying the process along the way?

© Machelle Baker 2014

Machelle Baker (22 Posts)

Machelle is a native Texan who values liberty. She has homeschooled six of her children at some point during their educational experience. She continues to home educate the youngest two. One way she expresses her passion for helping others is as a Crisis Chaplain. Some of the disasters to which she has deployed and ministered at are: the Bastrop, TX wildfire (2011), the West, TX plant explosion (2013), the Moore, OK F5 tornado (2013), and the Central Texas flood (October 2013), the Memorial Day Blanco River flood (2015), Hurricane Harvey (2017), the Sutherland Springs church shooting (2017), and most recently the El Paso Wal-Mart shooting (2019). She also currently serves a Regional Deputy Commander for the International Fellowship of Chaplains.