As part of the children’s church, our four-year-old brought home a cup of soil where they had planted a seed. The lesson had been about planting seeds of love and kindness and how important that was in bringing about new life and hope in people’s lives. The idea was that we could be the sunlight helping seeds grow within other people’s hearts. It was a beautiful lesson with a take-home reminder, but I have to admit my faith was low that the seed would actually grow.
It wasn’t because it was planted wrong or because there wasn’t rich soil around it. It wasn’t because we didn’t have a sunny place to keep the plant. It had much more to do with the four-year-old’s tendency to overwater plants, a trait she picked up from her mother. In her zealousness to care for the plant, she often didn’t allow time for the soil to soak up the water and flooded it with more water than one seed could need.
She was dedicated to taking care of the seed even on days when it rained and even after reminders that if it had rained then she didn’t need to water it because the sky already had. As she doused it each day, I started to formulate a plan for replanting the seed in our “garden” where she had deposited apple seeds and watermelon seeds convinced that they would grow when Spring came.
Just when I was sure that was the best course of action, we walked outside only to discover a tiny sprout. I was shocked. She looked at me and said, “See, mom, I told you it would grow.”
Perhaps it is in the fierce determination and daily nurturing of four-year-olds that we find our faith that sprouts of new life will grow, even in the midst of storms of life.