Growing in Ice

I love this image. These are my earliest blooming daffodils after an ice storm. The sprouts are totally encased in ice; alive, growing, frozen, beautiful.

There are so many questions to ask. Can we still grow while frozen? Does fear, darkness, and struggle hold us back? Will we grow into anything worth growing into?
But honestly none of those questions are truly worth asking. There is something much better to notice.

Look at the picture again. See how the tops of the sprouts are covered in ice? See how the bottoms are not? The plants are growing! They are covered in ice and still growing, despite this. That is because a bulb stores all its energy and power deep inside it. Once the flower blooms its leaves continue to gather energy and store that energy away below ground in the bulb. That energy gathered in a time of plenty is kept in reserve for when there is a time of nothing. That way in the cold darker months of Spring the plant can push up new shoots despite the ice, snow, and darkness around it. Sprouts grow despite the adversity because they have everything they need to start inside of them. And truly think that plants, if they could contemplate life, would never doubt if they were worth growing because everything they are meant to be, all the beauty and purpose is also contained in that same seed. They have all the potential for greatness, and all the energy they need to begin that journey inside of them from the very beginning. They have nothing to doubt, they are made with purpose and beauty.

That is how we should see ourselves. If we flip those ice moments in our lives on their heads we turn questions into options. Not, what if this doesn’t work, but what if it does? Change, what if no one want’s what I have to give, to I was made to share this my way!

Over the past two years taking over and running a small business I have heard one thing over and over again in prayer. “Do this the way I made you to do it.”

The way I was made to do things! Not live up to expectations. Not do it their way. Not the trendy way. My way, how I was made to be great!

It has taken a lot of time to figure out how exactly that looks for myself, but in the end we all know when something feels right. Those moments when we go; yeah, that is how I want to connect with the world.

When we are given a mission, a job, a life moment; be it parenting, managing, creating, we are called to do it the way we, as uniquely made individuals were made to do things. My style, my voice, might be different than things done in the past, but that is good. I am good. I was made good and to do good. I think differently than everyone else because I am my own unique person. Like snowflakes and apple seeds we each produce a different image, a different fruit. The potential to live that out, is inside of us. We will grow into something beautiful if we let ourselves grow in goodness. A good tree produces good fruit.

Don’t worry about the ice, it can’t stop the seed inside of you from sprouting into everything you were meant to be. The sun will come and melt the ice. Every virtue you stored up in the times of plenty will be ready to use during those first moments of struggle. Each season you struggle and use those virtues, the stronger they grow. More and more goodness and strength will build up inside of your soul. Store up virtue now while the times are good, so when those ice storms come, you will sprout and grow anyway.