There was a spring ritual in our family that began as the warm sun began to push back against the cold winter’s grasp. It was a simple ritual really. My mother would take us to the local store where we would shop for packets of seeds to plant that year’s harvest. The packets were a dime each for the most part.
Quite a deal indeed for what we ended with. It was exciting to us as little boys to see tiny little seeds and try to imagine how they would become the delicious fruits and vegetables we looked forward to.
My mother would show us how to carefully place a seed or two into a specially prepared hole, then gently tucking the dirt over the top. Then came the watering and the daily watching as we looked for that first sprout of green poking up through the soft soil. We knew they needed nurturing to grow into the beautiful plant that was pictured on the packet.
In my life since then I have planted many such seeds. I still get a thrill out of seeing the first tiny sprouts of green pushing up through the soil. I will forever remain in awe at what tiny little seeds have the potential to become.
It is one of life’s most wonderful blessings to watch seeds that you plant grow into maturity; seeds that are planted in the soil as well as seeds that we plant in souls, our own as well as others.
And as we work diligently to nurture them they will sprout and grow into beautiful and magnificent creations that are all but invisible as the first tiny seeds are planted. We may even think the seed has died and be tempted to walk away from that which we had hoped would mature, but this is a mistake.
Especially when the seeds we have planted and have tried so carefully to nurture along are watered, as it were, with the light of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.
How many of us have given up all hope because we do not see that first green sprout when we expected to? However, we cannot see what may be germinating just below the surface. We must never stop caring. We must watch on, hope on, and nurture on. This is ever so true when we are watching over a loved one or when we are watching over our own souls.
This much is certain, that which is planted and nurtured will grow into maturity, regardless of the time it takes to germinate. It matters not whether it is a radish seed or a testimony of Jesus Christ, it will grow and mature if nurtured.
Let us be patient, faithful, and ever looking forward to believe that that which we have planted, with our love, will become even as those seeds of my youth which grew into the delicious plants pictured there on the front of simple, ordinary dime packets of wondrous potential.
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Craig Lindquist is a Kauai resident and business owner.
