Close to the start of college, I went to a little on-campus farmer’s market with a friend. We bought a loaf of fresh bread to share and got some adorable free plants. They were just little sprigs of lavender in a plastic water bottle. They smelled good and looked cute in my dorm, but I wasn’t sure if my new little plant was going to survive, especially not while trying to grow in someone else’s trash. I kept watering it anyways (when I remembered.)
It got cold all of a sudden in October and the heat wasn’t on in our building yet. We bundled up and slept under piles of blankets. This semester I’ve been trying out for the UT novice rowing team as a coxswain— we have an incredible walk-on program where you can go from having no knowledge of rowing to being a D1 student-athlete in just a semester— and as I threw on so many layers I practically waddled to get in the boat on those windy, freezing days, my little plants just had to handle the cold and cloudy-skies sunlight. My lavender looked more and more gray. As I pushed through the stress of learning to balance rowing practice and aerospace engineering, I hoped my plants would make it, too.
Then one day I picked up my lavender and saw that there were some new leaves at the top. In fact, my lavender had just about doubled in size.
It grew before I knew. When I wasn’t paying attention, it was reaching up, striving for the sunlight.
And I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Of course I’d grown. Of course I’d gotten stronger— I knew that the weights I was lifting now were heavier than just a few weeks earlier, and my splits on the bike ergs were faster. Of course I also grew before I knew.
And not just physically. In the boat yesterday, I realized how natural it felt to guide the boat to starboard with a small rotation of my wrist. I noticed the other day how normal it felt to swipe my ID and get on the bus, or how unthinkingly my feet followed the route to the Catholic Center from my dorm. I looked around campus and thought about how effortlessly it had become home.
God works in our hearts so slowly over time that sometimes it’s hard to realize that anything is happening. I used to get so caught up in huge transformations— God, let me be done with this specific insecurity, or God, increase my faith so I can follow you better. And when I continued to battle that insecurity or when I struggled to feel confident talking about my faith, I sought out a transformative moment for a clear before and after. But a lot of what I am learning is how incremental that transformation is.
Because we grow before we know. And then one day we realize the constancy of how God is working in our lives. He is a God of fidelity, and by not always working through radical, overnight changes, He allows us the beautiful opportunity to walk alongside Him. He shows us His presence in small changes over time coming from the constant pursuit over time of us by Him and of Him by us. Because He is faithful.
So as this semester comes close to done, I think about how Jesus has walked alongside me this whole time and how much I’ve grown in just a few months. I think about my little lavender plant and feel confident that it’ll be okay when I leave it alone over Thanksgiving break. I think about just how constant God’s love is and how thankful I am to experience that. I think about how much peace He’s given me in this season and how much rest I have in knowing that I have time to grow.