Some of the most important things in your life will look useless before they look valuable.
A relationship. An idea. A season of your life. Even a part of yourself.
We are quick to judge what has not yet produced evidence and call it stagnant, unsuccessful, or unremarkable. But nature has never worked that way. Growth often happens long before there is anything visible to prove it.
I was reminded of that by a bird I could hear but could not identify—and by a tree I didn’t realize was more than it seemed.
Before Proof Appears
It’s morning now, and everything around me feels uniquely composed. The hush of the night remains settled over the house. I’m cocooned inside a sweet stillness that invites observation nestled between velvet and fur. Outside, the birds are singing their song, their melodies echo through the walls, distant yet distinct.
I now know the cardinal outside, who has made our yard a familiar landing. When we first moved here, I would hear her especially in spring with her bright, persistent call I could never quite place. It took years for me to discover the source. Then one morning, there she was, red-crowned and glorious, singing openly right out front my front door. And then her lover appeared, first in the maple, then hopping along the fence. Two lovers united.
I think about that now because there are so many things in life we hear, sense, or encounter long before we understand what they are.
Recognition Takes Time
Recognition can take time.
There is so much beauty surrounding us if we allow ourselves time and space to notice. Beauty, peace, love. Gentleness drifts through the air like a soft breeze in the middle of summer.
Gifts and opportunities are often present beneath the surface long before we recognize them.
Like while I was in my backyard and I noticed a single low-hanging fruit adjacent to our persimmon tree. Curious, I photographed it and looked it up. To my surprise, I discovered a pear. Somehow I’m standing on land bearing vegetation I didn’t plant. There is something humbling about this.
It reminds me that abundance doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it is rooted beneath our feet while we remain completely unaware of what is developing.
What We Almost Cut Down
In the days after discovering that pear, another memory returned to me. I remember at one point, the idea was floated of cutting the tree down; but I would not let it go.
The strange thing is, I did not know what that tree held then. I had no clue it might eventually produce something worthwhile. And now I can’t stop thinking about that. What if we had cut it down? We would never have known what we were missing.
How many things in life are like this tree?
How many people have we dismissed before they reached the season in which something inside them could finally emerge? Are there opportunities we abandoned because they did not produce quickly enough? Could there be parts of ourselves we labeled barren simply because they had not yet matured?
We live in a world that expects immediacy.
Show me now! Give us the result!
But what happened to mystery? Discretion? To intrigue?
People, stories, plots, plants, relationships, even systems need time to evolve.
I appreciate that nature seems uninterested in any kind of artificial urgency. It understands the development required for beauty and art and doesn’t apologize for it.
Why should I? Why should you?
Winter doesn’t apologize to summer. Roots go deep and are developing while no one can see. And trees do not become useless because the owner of the land doesn’t understand their purpose. Their fruit does not arrive on demand. It arrives in its season.
Standing in my backyard brings me new perspectives and appreciation. I am learning to embrace each season with respect and in that learning a new rhythm for myself.
In this I realize how each season serves a specific purpose. And many times, your most important work will take place when no one can see it.
Let that happen. Continue becoming.
Keep Becoming
This realization makes me look at people with more patience and compassion.
This is because we encounter one another in snapshots. A particular age, a difficult year, or a season of uncertainty. During a time of pruning. Perhaps even a moment before a lesson has fully settled into wisdom. And yet, you never know what timeline you stepped into when you’ve encountered that individual.
Then, far too easily, we decide that the snapshot is the whole person.
We do this to ourselves as well.
One of the greatest mistakes we can make is allowing someone else’s temporary perception of us to shape our definition.
Don’t let people define you. Define yourself. Keep becoming.
The pear tree seems to whisper something similar. After years of dead branches and shade, after seasons when seemingly nothing was happening, it produced what it always could.
Without ceasing she chose to stand tall, simply being who she was intended to be, even when onlookers, including myself didn’t recognize who she was.
That distinction is important to be mindful of because sometimes we mistake not yet for never or dormancy for death. And that’s not it.
An unfinished chapter is not the entire story.
Grace Leaves Room
Grace allows room to grow and time to evolve. This leaves space for revelation.
Give yourself, others and life enough room to surprise you. That may mean giving an opportunity another season. It may mean dusting yourself off after disappointment and trying again. Or looking to another day with a hopeful spirit. It could also mean offering ourselves the mercy of pressing forward before we have proof that our hope will be worthwhile. The journey is different for everyone. The invitation is:
- Give others a chance
- Believe in yourself
- Follow the thread
- And by all means, keep going
Life has taught me that understanding often arrives backward. We live through something first, and only later discover what it was cultivating in us.
There are challenges we cannot make sense of while standing inside them. We climb up trellises, endure droughts, and pace ourselves through seasons when nothing appears to be growing at all.
Still, I have learned to trust that God’s hand is steady.
The more I experience, the more convinced I become that His way is the best way for me. It is a surrender, but increasingly, it is a peaceful one.
There are words my mother has spoken and held onto throughout her life. I carry them too, tattooed on my heart.
I do not believe in perfection nor is it the goal. But I do believe in being willing to look yourself honestly in the mirror and not let the darkness frighten you.
There is beauty in becoming without abandoning yourself.
In remaining kind. Gentle. Loving. Sweet. And present.
I believe in showing up for yourself as faithfully as you show up for others.
The trees outside my window remind me that there is a season for blooming and a season for bearing fruit, but there are also seasons when the work is happening underneath the surface.
Those seasons count too. Maybe even more.
Because somewhere beneath what looks ordinary, uncertain, or even barren, something may already be preparing to reveal itself.
And one morning, years after you first began listening, you finally recognize the sound of the cardinal.
One afternoon, you look toward a tree you nearly abandoned and notice a pear hanging from its branch.
And suddenly you understand:
Beauty did not begin the moment you discovered it.
Grace had been unfolding there all along.