Slow-Faith

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We have been working in our Spring and Summer garden over the last few weeks. Sean and I set up a grow station in our house this year to watch our seeds grow from the very beginning. We mapped out our timeline, when to start our seeds, and when to transfer them. It may not sound like the most thrilling of days and I’m sure there are less “thought provoking” ways to garden, but the way we choose to garden inspires and gives us something to continually look forward to, it gives us hope.

Getting back into the warmth of the spring growing season has me thinking a lot about the growth of the last year. Many of you know that Sean and I went through three pregnancy losses this last year. It’s changed me. It’s changed the way I relate to the world, to other women, and to God. I feel more compassionate and empathic. I find my heart is softer and my eyes are quicker to tears for the pain and joys of others. It’s made me more attuned to my own self-care needs. It’s change the way I talk to God; I no longer approach with timid prayers but with bold and assertive prayers. It’s also made me continually reflective of the way the world works, like the small things of a seedling sprouting and the deeper meaning behind it.

One of these moments of “ah ha” came when we were transplanting our peppers into bigger pots before we planted them in the garden. We pulled out this pepper seedling that was maybe two inches tall and the roots grew out of the old pot to about two times the length of the plant. 

There was so much more happening underneath.

I’ve recently been using the term “slow-faith” to describe my faith life right now. I’ll be honest, while my prayers are bold to God, they are few. I am angry. I am hurt. I am disappointed. My community, they are lifting me up and I am thankful that I have such a strong group of women and men in my life who hold me in their hearts and prayers. It’s hard for me to remain in the presence of God when it just takes me to a feeling of heartache as He is healing it. So, my faith is slow and moment-to-moment, but the process of growth inside is happening nonetheless.

I like to change the word board on our mantle to fit the “mood” or season of the house. I wanted it to be plant-related to keep a reminder to myself about growth. I was just about to do “Bloom where you’re planted,” a classic, when it just felt wrong. It’s a word board, I know it’s not that serious, but these are the moments of slow faith I’m talking about. I felt something stir that I needed to tune in and listen to and this is what I felt:

It’s not a great expectation to bloom everywhere you are planted. To bloom is to produce (a flower) but sometimes we just need to grow. We need to grow and do the internal work in the pot we are in before we can move, grow, and produce in a bigger space. We have to grow before we can bloom.

Do you feel that, sometimes? 

The expectation to flourish everywhere you are? 

The need to be productive in every season? 

The need for external progress at every point in time?

I landed on this quote for my word board, “Wherever life plants you- seed, sow, grow.”

It was inspired from verses I’ve found comfort in lately, Psalm 126: 5-6, “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves {bundles of wheat} with them.”

While doing the internal work of growth and healing, we are still sowing good seed in our souls. 

I think that is what slow faith is: 

letting the seasons come to us, 

letting God love us where we are, 

and growing. 

Forever growing.

                                        

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Bonus! Here is a great poem I love on this topic:

Potbound

He asks me a question I’ve never considered before.
When is it that you know you have to go someplace else?
At first I think I don’t know, don’t go, never have, just try to please,
Do what’s expected, bloom where I am planted.
But then the answer germinates in the soil of my mind.
I see a potted plant, roots protruding from the drainage hole
in the bottom, ready to go bursting to grow.
After weeks or months or years of putting its root system down,
of consolidating its power, husbanding its resources, it has reached
a crisis point, lost its equilibrium, has to go, has to grow.
I run down to the cellar and root around for a larger pot,
A little larger only, so my vulnerable plant won’t wilt in the unstructured vastness of a new world without apparent walls.
I have to smash the old pot to rescue my restless plan, impacted root system now naked in my hand. A small sacrifice, but a radical operation to deliver the plan from death.
Without the space to grow, it will shrivel and die.
When is it that I know I have to go someplace else?
When I have to grow or die.

Diana Chapman Walsh


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