05.25.09
Potential Fruit
This picture may not look like much, but it is one branch of my apple tree. If you look closely at where the blossoms used to be, you can see several swelling stems, which is the sign that these blossoms have indeed set, and if all goes well, will produce lovely fruit. Maybe.
Which, of course, got me thinking. Have you ever been the kind of person who has the potential to bear lots of fruit? Do you have loads of talent, lots of potential, the confidence you need to get to fruition? I’ve got to be honest, sometimes I feel a lot like this branch. Out of this branch of set pre-fruit, maybe one or two will actually make it. And if we get a heck of a hail storm, not one of them has a chance. It’s not fruit until it’s fruit. Now, it’s just the potential to be fruit.
So back to me. I get this far a lot. I’ve got potential. And it looks like I’m going to get a lot of fruit out of my branch. But then the storms come. And it’s all I can take to hang on, to not give up. I’ll even tell myself that piece of hail is going to nail me. Or I get crowded out by a louder fruit, or a pushier fruit, or just a mean one. And even if I do make it, I’m smaller, I’m less, as I try to share the same space with the big fruit. I’ve got to tell you, it is rough business trying to be fruitful.
A lot of times I get to this point, where it looks like all I need to do is get to the finish line, and I stop looking for the difficulties. I think things should work out from here. I’ve done the hard part, set the thing in motion, now it should go well. But this is the time of attack. And the better I get at figuring that out, the more prepared I will be at protecting that little baby of goodness until the time comes to call it what it is, not what it could be.
I’ll keep track of that branch, and let you know who’s hanging on.
