Growing with Grace

One of the offshoots (no pun intended) of this pandemic has been the emergence of a volunteer tomato plant that has taken root.  Since mid-March, it has been producing tomatoes, and I noticed that one of them is almost ready to be picked.!  I wanted to pick it this morning, it feels almost ripe enough and I have already decided how I am going to enjoy it.  But I thought better of picking it, it needs a few more days of sunshine and growth, and a little bit of grace (from me).

I am not a gardener, or at least I was not a gardener pre-pandemic.  But thanks to the stay at home orders, almost everything has changed.

Spontaneous trips to the grocery store have been replaced by daily long walks with my dog.  Ordering take-out has been replaced by scouring the Joy of Cooking cookbook for new meals to cook at home.  In-person meetings have been replaced with FaceTime sessions and Zoom calls.  Hours that were spent skimming the news have been replaced by hours with my nose buried in books.

And then, there is growth.

Oh my, the growth that is happening!  Not only physically (hair, nails, waistline), but the mental growth too.  Learning something new and growing my knowledge base has become an almost daily practice.  Today, most of my conversations with clients and colleagues almost always include “I’ve never tried that before, but let’s give it a shot” and I am growing through all of it.

That is not to say that it is easy.  It is tough work.  It is uncomfortable.  There are moments that I am longing to be back to the way things used to be.  Longing to be back to normal.  But the growth is allowing me to look at what it is that I am leaving behind, and the room that I am making for new habits, new opportunities, and new skills (gardening is one of them).

A common thread through all this growth for me is the presence of grace.  Grace is the rudder that is keeping me on course when the storms of self-doubt approach, grace is the warm quilt that comforts me, grace is that tiny ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy day.  Is growth difficult?  Yes.  Is growth possible with a bit of grace?  Absolutely.