The saying “it could always be worse” has brought me little consolation when I have been experiencing a difficult time. But it a true statement. Of course, something bad is never good. But when something worse happens, boy does it put things in perspective.
And sometimes, things appear like they are getting worse when they are actually in the state of becoming something else. You see, for a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.
In the beginning, things look like they are getting worse for the seed. In their raw form, they look very different from what they will become. They stay buried in dirt, devoid of any evidence of growth or change. They may remain dormant for a long time. But they are there, just beneath the surface, evolving in ways we cannot see yet.
Things happen to the seed that might seem uncomfortable at first. It takes certain conditions, like nutrients in the ground, sunlight, water and most importantly, time, for the seeds to truly transform into something beautiful. They have to abandon their smaller form of a seed and trust that the process of growing and evolving will yield a better, stronger version of themselves – even though they remain beneath the surface for a period of time.
All our struggles, challenges and dark times are preparing us for something better. It is hard for us to see it at the time. Things might feel like they are getting worse. Like the seed achieving its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. Our darkest times can look like destruction, but is it? We may fall, but we rise again. We endure. And we are still here. Which means we still have some fight left in us.
