I was a plant killer. 

I’m not sure how it became a standing joke between my husband and I, but he thought it funny enough to buy me a snake plant once, because the label read something like, “Can be neglected for weeks at a time.” Sadly, the snake plant didn’t make it long in our house either. To be fair to the label, it did live several months in neglect before dying, but I still remember the day I tossed it in the dumpster. Guilt nagged me in a weird way. I couldn’t even keep the world’s hardiest houseplant alive. Somehow it reflected to me all the other areas of housekeeping and daily life I struggled to manage. 

Have you ever spent months or years in a season of being stuck? Getting married and becoming a mom paralyzed me in many ways. I love getting things right. But suddenly I had no idea what the standard was – no teacher marking A+ on my college essays anymore. My colicky baby screamed constantly at me, my new husband didn’t like the food I knew how to cook and housework piled up around me. Survival defined every area of life. 

But seasons change. For me, the idea of “cultivating” opened my eyes to a new way of living. Psalm 92:12-13 says, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in they flourish in the courts of our God.” God desires his people to grow and flourish – not just survive. I no longer had to stay paralyzed in imperfection. I could start to grow the habits I longed to live out in my daily life. I could cultivate joy, consistency, and even houseplants if I learned to shift my perspective and practice the daily work I needed to do. 

BELIEVE CHANGE CAN BEGIN
Winter in Iowa drags on cold and white. With the help of my goal-setting planner, I spent a month checking off boxes every day that I did my dishes. I cleaned my kitchen for thirty-one days in a row, something I’d never been able to achieve before. That win sparked something that made me want to try another impossible goal. On a gray February morning, I bravely posted on my Facebook timeline, “Do any of my local friends have any houseplants clippings they could give me?” People jumped to share with me and I ended up with a spindly baby spider plant, a red and green coleus stem, and a well-rooted philodendron. So I began. 

Two years later, those plants are flourishing in our home. When we moved across the country last fall, I gratefully cut stems, rooted them and gave away plants to my friends as we said goodbye. Today I no longer label myself a plant killer. But the lessons I’ve learned in cultivating those houseplants reach far deeper than the greenery on my mantle. 

PLOW FIRST – FIGURE OUT WHAT MATTERS
I grew up a farm girl, and many summers I would plow the fields so my dad could plant the winter wheat each November. After harvest, the fields need a lot of preparation before a new crop can grow. A plow digs in deep to root up the weeds and dried stubble. A disc churns the earth until it becomes soft and smooth. It might seem like none of this work has anything to do with the crops growing but they can’t even be planted until the fields are ready. 

As I took the steps toward change, I had to dig in the dirt of my own heart to prepare my heart for what I wanted to plant there. I found some unpleasant roots under there. I realized I believed some lies about my value as a woman. And I discovered a lot of fear – fear of imperfection, of failing, and of what people would think if I set out to change. The comfort of survival mode felt safer than the discomfort of growing.

In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter if I label myself a brown thumb and stay that way? Maybe not, for some, but deep down I truly wanted to grow living things. I wanted to plant a garden, grow beautiful zinnias and harvest tomatoes and winter squash at the end of the summer. I had been believing I couldn’t change, but when I dug into my heart, I realized I wasn’t happy staying a plant killer. 

Every time we look to develop a new habit, we set ourselves up best for success when we figure out our “why.” Exercise trainers tell us that we need a stronger motivation than simply “losing weight” to succeed in getting fit. Our reasons need to be personal. One woman might want to be stronger to play with her kids. Another might want to be healthier because she wants to live a full and adventurous life. Maybe we choose to declutter our home for peace of mind and heart, or learn to meal plan so we can feed our family better meals and save money to pay off debt. When we dig in the soil of our hearts, we can prepare ourselves to grow as we start planting the good seeds of our new habits. 

PLANT THE CROP – ACT ON MY FAITH
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8). 

Choosing to change means trusting God. It means believing that he would honor the work I put in and send the rain and sunshine and help me grow. Yet we might believe with our heads that we can change, and never put in the work to make it happen. 

Where does God’s part end and mine begin? Scripture shows us a balance of God working in us and also allowing us to choose our daily actions. Paul wrote, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). He was speaking about preaching the Gospel, but we know that God is working in all areas of our lives. We may plant the cutting in the pot of dirt, and take time to water it weekly, but only God can make that little houseplant flourish in the sunshine on the kitchen windowsill. So it is with everything we do. 

To get out of that season of being stuck, I had to practice doing small, hard things that added up to grow the kind of life I wanted. I held onto the words of Jesus, who said, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much” (Luke 16:10). Before this season, progress didn’t look like progress to me unless I accomplished something big. But everything in life truly grows little by little. The spider plant I potted looked the same for months. It didn’t die, though, so I watered it once a week and waited. I didn’t realize that below the surface, roots were growing, stretching into the soil to ground the plant. The tiniest steps really do add up. 

Another habit I cultivated during this season was brushing my teeth daily. “Taking care of myself matters,” I wrote on the tending list I kept inside my medicine cabinet. I couldn’t see my progress, but the ritual of checking off that chore and repeating that truth to myself rewired my brain. Before this, taking vitamins and other daily self-care practices fell by the wayside for me. But today they are second nature. Those little practices transformed me. In survival mode I couldn’t think about homeschooling my first grader, or writing a blog, or stepping into a vocation as a speaker, but now I can practice faithfulness in these bigger venues because I started small. 

WAIT FOR THE HARVEST
When we moved to a new city, I discovered the most beautiful greenhouse just down the road from us. Naturally, I’ve tried some new houseplants, and I’ve discovered that not all plants take the same amount of care. Some are more temperamental. I’ve had to figure out a balance of how much water and light the new plants need. I’ve had to cut out root rot and try to figure out why leaves kept turning yellow. I’ve had to be brave, and sometimes I’ve had to wait for a week or so to see if something would work for a plant or not. 

Growing and waiting go hand in hand. Sometimes when we start to build habits in our lives, we’re tempted to give up quickly, especially once the discomfort of change sets in. This is where our faith is tested. Do we believe God will come through for us? James writes, “You know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:3-4). “Steadfastness” can also be translated to mean “patience,” or “endurance.” As we wait, our endurance grows, and endurance produces maturity. When we planted watermelon last summer, we had to let the melons sit in our garden for months before we picked them. The wait was worth the sweet pink juice dripping down our chins. 

Sometimes, when we wait, things don’t turn out like we expect. A houseplant I nurture for months might still die in the end. The watermelon might have not been sweet after all when we harvested it. That doesn’t mean our waiting was wasted, though. The endurance that grows inside us matters just as much as getting our wished-for results. Eating healthy and exercising might help us lose weight, but sometimes we may not lose as much or as quickly as we wish. Yet making those healthy choices still helps us, even if it’s hard to see how on the outside. 

CULTIVATE A SPIRIT OF GROWTH
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). A healthy heart-cultivator keeps going even when it’s tough, because she believes that God will never quit working on her. We change when we have a reason to change, and we hang onto that reason even when it’s hard because we know it’s worth it. 

Sometimes I get tired of working in the soil of my heart. I just want to cut the flowers, stick them in a vase and be done with it. But to develop joyful, life-giving practices takes time, and patience. Once I can embrace my messy life, and move forward with a purpose, I can grow new habits as God changes me deep inside. 

Today I caught myself saying “I couldn’t do that,” about something and stopped in my tracks. That is the language of someone in survival mode, who doesn’t care if she stays stuck. I’m not that person anymore. I’m not a plant killer. I may not be a master gardener, but I’m a woman who’s learning how to grow good things, houseplants included.

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