Get in the Greenhouse

The kind of concerts you go to where you feel alive, you wake up the next morning and can hardly speak.

The kind of speakers you listen to or videos you watch where you walk away ready to lead a lifestyle of positivity and a passion and to make a difference.

The kind of camps or conferences that set a spark in your soul. You just can not shake the feeling that the message you heard was spoken directly to you.

The kind of moments we think will change our lives forever, and somehow they don’t last.

I hope you can relate to one of those scenarios, I think we have all been there a time or two. As I am reflecting back on my first year of college, I can’t help but think of things I went in feeling so confident and passionate about. Having a quiet time every morning, reaching out and spending intentional time with those I don’t know, writing cards to remind people that I care about them. It’s easy to create these ideas. But, it isn’t always easy to maintain the action of doing them.

Think of it this way, It’s the start of summer and you are a vibrant hot pink petunia flourishing in a greenhouse. In a way you are blooming well because you are being kept inside of that greenhouse. You are continually watered as much as needed, you are given supplements to and you are accustomed to a daily routine that benefits your growth. In a way, this is how we are when we are listening to heart wrenching concert music or a speech that hits home. We are flourishing, we are growing, we are evolving, and it is good.

Go back to being the petunia (don’t ask why I keep choosing petunias). Somehow you have been taken out of the greenhouse and into a dry place that has no sunlight, no water and no nutrients. You begin to shrivel up, and you aren’t so vibrant anymore.

You have been in a youth group for 10 years, you have been cared for by faithful people. You have been at a summer camp for 7 days you have been cared for. All of the sudden you return home or you move to college and your water source has been cut. Your greenhouse for growth is gone and here you are slowly fading. This is how passion dies out. It takes seconds.

It may seem like a silly comparison, but it is real! I have realized in my own life and by observation of other lives, that when we are strippped from our greenhouse we begin to settle for anything outside of it. We no longer see ourselves as a vibrant, blooming flower. We tell ourselves we aren’t good enough. We start settling to ignore the book we haven’t picked up for weeks or the blog we haven’t kept up with (haha, me). We settle to stop eating healthy because we binged last night. We avoid our quiet time because we have not remained consistent. We start settling into relationships that we think are good enough. We start letting people treat us bad because we think it’s what we deserve. We start settling into our routines because we convince ourselves that it’s OKAY.

But, you are not a withered plant. You are _____________ (This is the part when you look in the mirror and say your name.)  You are what you tell yourself you are, and you are capable of more than settling. So where ever you were when you felt that spark light in your soul, wherever you were when you were so passionate to begin. Get back to that version of yourself. Put yourself in that greenhouse.  

You may have to prune the dead flowers out of your life first, prune back everything you were settling for. That probably won’t be easy, in fact I know it won’t be. But, after the pain comes the passion. See, you weren’t made for easy, you were not made for a comfort zone. Letting people walk over you is easy. The hard part is bouncing back. But do it, BOUNCE BACK.