Longer than Expected

Finally I felt like I could post that a sprout has taken off on my avocado tree! Note the intentional use of "tree." The information I had read on various internet websites had said that anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks should be enough time to produce a sprout in your seed, submerged in water. Well after 16 weeks, there's finally a sprout that has emerged above the top of the seed.

I was tempted to give up hope, but there were enough little signs here and there that kept me from chucking it in the garbage. First, there was the root. It continued to go down, rather quickly in plant terms. Now it is curled around and around the bottom of the mug it's confined to, and the main root has little branches off it. Then there was the split. The seed split from the bottom up. I thought it was going to completely fall apart, but there's a marble-sized piece in the middle that is holding the two halves together.

Then a single sprout went up about a 1/4 inch. And stopped. Except for the phenomenal growth of the root, I would have thought it failed. And indeed, that first sprout never has gotten any taller. But you could see little buds around that sprout, of which one suddenly (well, as suddenly as two weeks can be) popped out and made a run for the light, as you can see in the most current picture.

All along I have equated this little goofy experiment with spiritual life. I don't think it's inappropriate nor a huge leap to take natural things to explain the supernatural. God made them both, and we are told in the Bible (and I paraphrase) that the evidence of God in his creation is enough for people to be without excuse when they face judgment someday. So I let a little avocado pit that I retrieved from a garbage instruct me on the ways of the Almighty.

Often the evidence of God's work in our lives takes, as the title of this entry says, "longer than expected." We can spend a lot of time really wondering what is going on, if anything. That's kind of been true since I moved back to Illinois 4 years ago. That was my time of poking sticks into the avocado seed and plunking it into some water. Since then I have had few sightings of God's direction.

However, like the split and the root, there have been small things along the way that have kept my dwindling hope from failing. Although there are no angel visitations in my dreams or messages from God painted on a billboard on the expressway, there are small encouragements along the way that indicate His promise to never leave me nor forsake me.

Perhaps I will see some sprouts in my life that show me what God is doing. Now that there is a promising growth in the avocado seed, it will be fun to see how long it takes before I may see leaves. Now THAT would be something! And you can bet I'll be back here, writing about it.

Thanks for reading!