Have you ever stood in line at a home improvement store in the springtime spinning the display wheel full of garden seeds? So many options…a vegetable garden with the makings for a salad, or maybe pumpkins for Halloween. Or wait, it could be a flower garden. Hearing, “next!” you are startled out of your reverie and walk away from the packets to put the needed toilet plunger on the check counter.
You contemplate a garden the whole drive home and when you arrive you catch yourself gazing into the backyard picturing where you’d put the garden. You make dinner thinking about how you’d incorporate the vegetables from the garden or place flowers from it in the center of the table. But you didn’t buy the seeds.
Our hopes, dreams, and best lives are like the seeds in those packets. They can sit packaged up in promise, giving us grand ideas when we see them.
Or we can take action.
Pick up that seed packet of a dream, study the directions on how to plant and nurture it to life, and watch it grow. Tend to it as goes from unseen promise to little green sprout. Try not to get discouraged when it grows more slowly than you want. Celebrate the miracle of its growth and your willingness, dedication, and patience with seeing it through.