We receive a frost warning, so that means I bring my little potted fig and lemon tree indoors. I like having them near me in the kitchen, and it feels good to know I’m helping protect their leaves and roots from the freezing night. If I were to imagine the stronger plum and peach trees outside protesting or mocking my less hardy little trees, I’d say, “We know their limits! We know some atmospheres aren’t good for them! They’d never recover from the damage!”
Based on your own make-up and what God designed you for, some places aren’t good for your soul. Some situations won’t help (or instead might even damage) your growth. And when you feel God removes you from people, places, or projects and seems to tuck you away beside Him like a potted lemon tree hanging around indoors, remember it’s for a time. You might stay hidden away until the weather changes and until you’re strong enough to enough a cold, dark night.
Last year, a bitter cold night killed one of my potted plumcots. My fruit-tree expert neighbors said to transplant it anyway and water and fertilize it. The limbs looked dead. I saw no green anywhere. But still, underneath, in that tangle of roots, life might still circulate. I cut away all the dead limbs and planted that little spindly trunk of tree. Spring has come. Nothing. No growth. The neighbors say, “You never know. It might come back in another year.” Every time I look out my back window and see that (nearly) dead trunk sticking up, offering no growth at all, I think that so much could be happening underneath: the work of repair, of strengthening. I’ll wait another year until I give up hope. I do wish I had brought that plumcot inside to enjoy the same warmth as the fig and lemon. All three trees remind me to listen to where God may want me (or not want me) to protect my own growth.