soil | NEW LIFE

Be like a tree
“Stay grounded. Connect with your roots. Turn over a new leaf. Bend before you break. Enjoy your natural beauty. Keep growing”
by Joanne Raplis

A couple of months ago I brought all my plants home from work since we are now teleworking. I knew that I needed to repot all of them but kept delaying the process. Well what better time to do them, now that I have them at home. I would notice that the leaves would grow and then die. I knew that it was not getting over watered because I only watered it once a week. So, I figured it probably needed to be repotted.

To my surprise when I pulled it out of the pot I noticed:

1. How hard the roots were – they had formed into the container it was confined to.

2. Its barley had any soil left – it was not getting the proper nutrients

3. It was running out of room to grow.

Could it be that it was dying because it was suffocating and had no room to grow? That is was not getting what it needed to thrive?

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”
Philippians 1:6

So, I tried to spread the roots a part, but they were solid. I found a bigger pot and added some new soil. I placed the plant inside, added more soil to cover the sides, and the top completely, and then I watered it down good. Within a week, it looked very healthy, and it was growing like crazy.

God will allow things to change around you to force you to move or make the necessary changes because He knows that you want to do it on your own. Sometimes it is disguised in trauma, heartbreak, and pain. It is not to kill or destroy you, but to realign you and to make you better.

In this season God is healing you, redeveloping you and redefining who you are. He is expanding your territory and stretching your capacity. You want to be able to fit in the container that once held you.

My prayer for you today is that you would allow God to complete the process. That considering all that is going on around you, that you would still have hope to not give up and to keep going.

Song List

Yesterday I was out watering my plants and when I came around to watering the Japanese Maple Tree I noticed that it had some what detached itself from the stick it was connected to. In the beginning stages of growing a tree sometimes a stick is attached to the tree to keep it from growing crooked and until it is strong enough to stand on it’s own. I planted the tree almost a year ago and I honestly didn’t think that it was going to make it because it wasn’t producing anymore leaves and the leaves that remained were falling off. Even the branches were dying on it. I kept watering it every other day and prayed that the roots would have settled and were strong enough to make it through the winter. I kept checking to see if there were any changes and there wasn’t anything. By spring it flourished and the leaves were beautiful as it stood looking healthy and strong. As I looked closer at the tree the stick that was attached had snapped in half and some of the strings had come a loose. That let me know that the tree had grown and it was strong enough to stand on it’s own. So I removed the string and the stick. I stood there for a moment just to make sure that it was able to stand on it’s own and sure enough it was. That made me smile. I was glad that I didn’t do what I had initally started to do which was to up root it and throw it away. Just because you don’t see any evidence of life on the surface doesn’t mean that their isn’t anything growing underneath the soil. Sometime’s the greatest things are produced in a dark place. Give it some time to be produced. Don’t give up on it just yet. God will send people and things in ours lives to help us along the way, but if we aren’t careful they can become a crutch. If we continue to use our crutches how will we know what we can do on our own. Crutches can become a handicap when they are used past their season and we become so depended on it that we think that we need it survive. At times God will remove the things that we have become depended on to hold us up (crutches) so that we can see just how strong we really are. Your greatest strength is sometimes found when you are finally able to stand on your own.