God’s Perfect Timing for Imperfect Growth

As a Florida girl, I can admit that this cold weather is getting so old to me. It is now mid-February and if you’re someone who follows the tradition of a rodent popping up to dictate how the weather is going to go, you would know that we are predicated to have 6 more weeks of winter. I’m over it. I’ve BEEN over it. Which is why, when a few weeks ago the temperature increased by almost twenty degrees and the sun slid out from behind the clouds, ya girl got excited. I pulled out a pair of sandals and I popped outside to bask in the warmth of my old friend, the sun. When I stepped back inside my apartment, I saw all twelve of my plants sitting on some end tables, only catching bits and pieces of the sun’s light through my blinds. While I am proud to be a plant parent, I must confess that I am no plant professional. My current babies include 1 pathos, 2 succulents, 3 snake plants, 2 lucky bamboo plants, and 4 other beautiful plants whose types I do not know. Again, plant mom, not plant professional. Anyway, when I got back inside and saw my plants, I knew they deserved to bask in the warmth of the sun, just like I wanted to. I was worried about putting the snake plants and the bamboo outside, so two by two, I grabbed the others and moved them directly into the sun on my 3rd floor balcony railing. I was so pleased! After I posted my excitement on my Instagram story, I sat outside for maybe 15 more minutes then ventured back inside to watch a lil drama on Netflix. I left the flowers outside for the rest of that night. And the next night. I looked up and a week had gone by and my plants were still outside. The thing about Florida’s weather is that it’s not very cold very often and when it is, it doesn’t last very long. The warm typically barges its way back in after only a few days of “cold” and all is right within the universe again. Unfortunately, I didn’t consider that being in North Carolina now, there is a definite, higher caliber of winter here. That it gets cold enough to produce ice, sleet, snow, and the low temperatures linger – for months. And I forgot to bring my plants back in. I was accommodated to a different environment and because of that, I thought the warmth was here to stay. Surprise! I was wrong.

That next week I went out to check on my plants. Other than the 4 unknowns, everyone was dying. Some shriveling, some losing color, and they were all cold to touch. I rushed the succulents and pathos back inside and fussed over them here and there: pruning, watering, repotting, essentially whatever I thought would help. For the most part, the baby succulent seemed unscathed (at least from what I could see). The bigger succulent was down to one dark, empty stalk and the crawling arms of the pathos were all rotting off. It became apparent to me that I foolishly rushed to transition my plants out of their appropriate timing.

As disappointed as I was, I couldn’t help but look at the situation through a larger lens: the importance of timing. A glimpse of what I wanted caused me to move too soon, predicated on a life I was used to living. I put and kept my plants outside in the beginning of February because I was so used a taste of warmth in Florida signaling the end of the cold and I brought that assumption with me here to North Carolina. I didn’t take into consideration the damage that that assumption could wreak on the new life I was trying to create, nurture, protect, and ultimately, revive. I know, I know – they’re plants, Dionne. But it reminded me that timing matters. Our way of thinking matters. Context matters. In all things. A few more months later and it would have been safe to escort everyone out. But I allowed my wants and expectations to create a narrative contrary to what was really going on around me. I went for it. Out of impatience, I lunged for any durability of warmth. And because I didn’t properly evaluate the context (the needs of each plant, the stage of life we were in), I lost months of growth and progress. I wasn’t exactly wrong for it; it was simply the wrong time for it.

With that being said, I’m not here on a doom and gloom trip. There’s good news buried deep within the soil. The roots of each dying plant were still intact and healthy, which meant I have the grace to grow again. To continue with the promise of more to come. To cultivate life into the future. The viability of the roots affirmed to me that being steadfastly grounded in the right foundation will hold my vital layers, nutrients, and all my deeper, broadening developments together. That with patience and care, more life will re-emerge in due time. Faith and hope were fundamentally filled within those roots. Imagine the possibilities of what that says about us.   

I believe it is also important to note the varying thresholds that each plant holds throughout its life. While some plants began to decay in the cold, there were 4 that were not only able to survive it, but 2 began to bloom new baby beginnings. Those 2 overcame the harsh conditions of the cold weather and erupted through the adversity of the topsoil. This reminded me that each life is unique, and each life needs different things at different times. Different terms, different areas of vulnerability, different displays of victory, different temperaments, and I could not hold one type of life up to the next and think one way would work for all. That what one needed to survive, to change, to flourish, to be seen as beautiful and worthy of the work, could be blindly stretched over the next and that it would equate to the same level of “success” as the others. I needed to see and acknowledge these differences and adjust accordingly if I had any hopes of each type of life doing well and STAYING well. I had to feed accordingly, prune accordingly, and leave parts in their stillness accordingly. Each varying component of each type of life mattered, and I needed to experience the frustration of that decay to pry my eyes/mind/spirit open to understand how to adapt for the good of what I was sewing into.

I’d love to give you a happy ending wrapped up in a perfect little bow and say all my plants have since bloomed back in full, and that I’ve learned the error of my plant parent ways. But that wouldn’t be my truth and that wouldn’t be how life always unfolds itself to be. The truth is my plants are still recovering and I’m not 100% sure how they’re going to come back into fruition. I’ve chosen to be patient with them and give the good things time to redevelop. To pick up and move forward in what I’ve learned versus remaining in a dying, stagnant position. I’m reminding myself that despite what can be seen with my eyes in this season right now, the unseen roots are well established and because of that, there is hope. Again, I am in no way perfect with my plants. This was initially hard on me because I tend to be a bit of perfectionist. I like to do and get things right the first time. To be good at things right away. Again, reality check: that is not how life works! The things worth having can take time to practice, learn, and improve upon.

This traumatic plant experience and crafting this blog post have reminded me that that perfection does not matter. It is a subjective social construct that, if not careful, can cause us to hyper focus on the “end destination”/result and miss out on the gems of the journey. But what is impertinent is that I will keep trying my best because I have a lot of love to give, a lot of songs to express my love through (the plants’ current favorite is Beautiful by Christina Aguilera), and I’m willing and excited to learn along the way. What’s important is that when the timing is right, without a second thought, I can put my plants back out. That in the right season, they will be able to securely bask in the sun, soak in the nourishment, and restructure it as fuel to be reinvented far beyond anyone’s limited perceptions of what they could or should be. That in the appropriate alignment, the life I’m investing in will form into what it’s supposed to be, how it’s supposed to be, and when it’s supposed to be. My greatest mishaps, feelings of inadequacy, or occasional fear of failure cannot stop what is for me. And I’m grateful that through this story of nearly killing my plants I was reminded that despite my own timing, expectations, limitations etc., God’s grace is waiting patiently for me to accept it as enough, that there is still much hope to be had for what is to come, and that His timing - the right timing - is always on time.

Thank you for reading.

Xo,

The Woman Defined