Every Spring, I find myself getting impatient.
I want the rows to be full. I want the fields to turn green overnight. I want to skip ahead to the part of the season where everything is growing, blooming, and buzzing with life.
But the fields don’t hurry. And they never have. All they do is ask us for patience.
One day, there is only fresh plastic in neat rows stretching all the way to the tree line. The next day, there is the tiniest hint of green — signs of freshly transplanted seedlings, barely big enough to see above the plastic, but mighty and full of promise just the same. Go to the same field a week later, and those seedlings will still be tiny in comparison to what they will become. These early days of Spring are deceptively quiet and often leave us wondering if things are even changing at all.
And then slowly, and with all the patience in the world, they do. The fields become full. The flowers bloom. The vines climb higher. And the first day of harvest eventually arrives.
Spring has a way of reminding us that real growth doesn’t happen all at once. That lesson feels especially meaningful after a difficult season. There are years when the weather does not cooperate, when freezes come too late, rains come too hard, and things don’t unfold the way we’d hoped. Southern Valley has seen those seasons. We know what it’s like to walk through uncertainty, to make difficult decisions, and to have to wait for the opportunity to start over.
But Spring always gives us another chance. And maybe that’s why it feels so special. Spring reminds us that good things take time. The fields don’t hurry. They are quiet and calm, day after day, patiently working beneath the surface to bring the rows to life.
And if there is one thing we have learned through the years, it is to trust God, keep planting, and believe that what is meant to grow will.