How to Know You’ve Been Growing All Along

There’s a moment in spring when you walk outside and something has shifted overnight. Growing happens whether or not you’re paying attention, but it’s best if you take an intentional moment to pay attention.

You can’t point to the exact day it happened. The trees didn’t announce it. The ground didn’t send a notification. But somewhere between the last time you looked and this morning, things that were bare are suddenly, unmistakably green. The growth that was happening underground, invisibly, for weeks is finally visible.

We’ve spent April asking one question together: What’s actually forming me? And if you’ve been reading along, something has been working in you whether you’ve been tracking it or not. That’s how this goes. That’s how it always goes.

The Growing Topics We’ve Covered This Month

We started in the soil, asking honest questions about what’s underneath before we worried about what’s visible. We sat with the uncomfortable reality that growth often happens in seasons when nothing seems to be moving. And we looked at the habits quietly shaping us, the returns we make without thinking, the things humming in the background of our daily lives.

We talked about pruning. Those hard seasons that feel like loss but turn out to be tending. We watched a backyard tree grow tall while nobody was paying attention, and let it remind us that faithfulness is the work, not the feeling of progress. One day, we named the drift, the slow lean toward the wrong light that happens one small degree at a time.

We remembered that we weren’t designed to grow alone, that roots reach toward each other in the dark in ways we can’t always see. And last week we sat with the grief and the grace of letting go, of releasing what we’ve been carrying that was never meant to come this far with us.

That’s a lot of ground covered. Literally and otherwise.

The Tree You Are Becoming

I want to come back to Psalm 1 one more time, because I think it means something different at the end of the month than it did at the beginning.

“That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers.”

When we read this in week one, it was an image to lean into. A picture of what rooted growth could look like. An invitation to examine the soil.

But now, at the end of the month, I want you to read it as a description of what’s already true of you. It’s okay that you’re not perfect or complete. We’re all in the same boat together, incomplete and somewhere in the middle of the growing process.

You are a tree being planted. Not fully grown, not finished, not without the seasons that still lie ahead. But planted. Near the water. With roots that are going deeper than you can see. In the hands of a gardener who knows exactly what he’s doing with you.

The fruit comes when the timing is right. Your leaf does not wither. When you’re rooted in Him, returning to His Word, staying near the water through the hard weeks and the quiet ones, whatever you do prospers in the way that actually matters.

One Thing About Growing to Carry Into Next Month

We’re moving into May, and our new theme is RENEW. It’s anchored in Isaiah 40:31. The question we’ll be exploring is What needs healing along the way?

If GROW asked you to look at what’s forming you, RENEW is going to ask you to look at what’s been worn down in the growth process. The two themes belong together. You can’t talk honestly about growth without eventually talking about the places that got tired, the wounds that never quite closed, or the strength that needs restoring.

Before we get there, take a moment to mark where you are right now. Just a quiet acknowledgment that you showed up this month, asked hard questions, and let the Word do some growing work in you.

That matters. Even the parts that felt small.

This month, our theme has been GROW — Get Rooted On the Word. And the Word you’ve been returning to this month isn’t finished with you yet. It never is. That’s the thing about being planted near living water. There’s always more to drink, always more depth for the roots to find, always another season of fruit waiting on the other side of the one in which you are right now.

Keep growing. Keep returning. Stay planted.

Join the Conversation

Here’s our closing question for the month: What’s one thing from April you’re carrying with you into May? It could be a thought, a moment, or a shift in perspective. It doesn’t have to be profound. Sometimes the thing about growing that sticks is small and specific and exactly right. Share it in the comments below. Let’s close out the month together.

For the deeper reflection and maybe even what you’re hoping the RENEW theme next month might speak to, head over to your journal, or wherever you jot down your thoughts. Write the honest version. The one without the tidy ending. That’s often where the real roots go deepest.