Don’t Give Up!
I don’t know what you are experiencing or how close you are to your breakthrough, but I can tell you this, if you give up now, you will not see" IT" to completion or bring in the fruits of your labor. LITERALLY!
Three years ago, I planted a Meyers Lemon tree in my backyard. Gardening has never come easy to me and everyone who knows me will agree with this. But I do like the idea of gardening, and I most definitely enjoy watching things grow and become something different than they were in their original form as a seed. I LOVE being able to reap and eat what I sow as well. It’s like I can taste my hard work, time and patience even more when I know what I put into it.
Let’s get back to my lemon tree…. well I planted it in my backyard, and it grew and did well. Little did I know, it would die when it got cold. I told you I am NOT a Master Gardner but I am in training. I watched that tree grow into a beautiful lemon tree all spring, summer, and fall, and then in the winter it DIED. Part of me did too… but I learned that I couldn’t leave a citrus tree in the freezing elements where I live.
Spring rolled around the next year and would you know….that lemon tree started shooting back up through the ground. I was so tickled when I saw the green shoots moving up. I fertilized it and it grew into a good-sized tree again but this time I dug it up before the first freeze and planted it in a pot and brought it inside. Then it stalled, I thought I was going to lose it again, it even turned brown, and leaves started falling. But I refused to give up on this lemon tree, it was resurrected from the DEAD. Even my family said LET.IT. GO. But I wouldn’t. I kept watering it, talking to it, giving it sunlight and it started sprouting new leaves and looking better with time. But still NO FRUIT. In fact, I didn’t have any fruit and it didn’t bloom for over 2 years.
My daughter went to a camp and toured a landscaping farm that following summer and she told them about my lemon tree, and they said more than likely it would never bear fruit because of it dying and coming back. I still refused to believe this, and I was NOT giving up on my lemon tree. Stubbornness can be a blessing but also a curse sometimes!
So now we are at year 3. I put my lemon tree back outside again after all the cold weather left in the spring and it thrived in the sun and was just as green as it could be all summer. But still no fruit. I gave it citrus fertilizer, watered it, and continued to talk to and let it know I wasn’t giving up on it.
Last fall, after the first frost I brought the tree in for the winter. All my family again said you need to let that tree go, it’s been 3 years and you don’t have the first lemon. I said no, I’m not giving up on it. Within 3 weeks of bringing the tree inside last fall this tree started getting the most fragrant buds and they started to bloom all over the lemon tree. Even my family was amazed, they said, it wouldn’t grow any fruit because it needs to be pollinated and there are no bees this time a year or inside. But I wasn’t giving up hope.
All the flowers began to fall and I could see little tiny lemons on the tree. Most of them fell off too but I’m happy to report I have ONE thriving lemon! It looks like a baby lime now but it’s a lemon and I’m still not giving up on this tree. It’s bigger than ever and my thought is if it grew only ONE lemon in all that time, I’m bound to have at least TWO lemons next time around.
Don’t give up on your dream or yourself or those around you. You may hear negative chatter around you but don’t let others snuff out YOUR DREAMS. Situations and people take time to grow and become what God has made them to be. This lemon tree was proof to me that when we allow something to grow and nurture it and believe in it and LOVE IT, we will reap what we sow eventually and bring in the harvest of our dreams.