It seems to be what God keeps saying to me.

“Hang in there, sister. This is part of a beautiful process.”

At this moment, writing this post, I don’t hate process. Usually, I tend to hate process. Because I have a strong distaste for change, for the unknown, and for hard work.

[You’re welcome for that bit of ugly truth.]

There is a classic field trip location in Atlanta called the Cyclorama. You pretty much sit in a chair and rotate in a circle, seeing different Civil War scenes painted on the walls. I picture my life like that. So if you were to sit down in the Cyclorama of Annie’s Current Life, every scene shows me in a process:

The plants with the other Annie.

Africa. [Which I promise I have more to say about, but the processing is deep.]

My writing career.

My heart.

All in process. I think that’s why the plants meant so much to me last week. My hands were getting to do something to express the condition of my heart, reminding me that my work on the front end will yield good results on the back end, but not without some waiting in the middle.

Waiting that looks like death.

But it is actually pre-bloom. Very different.

The plants are going to be a short process, I think. Just a practice run in patience. Other things, like my book getting published and on your bookshelf, or me being almost 29 and wanting to get married [yeah, I don’t blog about that], those processes feel long. And like death.

But there is just something about those hanging plants. God uses them to whisper hope into my heart. “The flowers will come up.”

God said in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that He makes all things beautiful in His time.

So I don’t doubt that the flowers will come. It’s my ability to be patient that I doubt. But last week I realized that it’s time to hug the process. Do you know what I mean? Not that I have to always love it, but I need to settle into all these stories and let them play out. God has literally FILLED my life with situations that are pre-bloom. Mid-process.

Why now?

Phil Wickham sings “That my heart beats to the rhythm of Your heart…”

I think I can hear that rhythm more clearly in the waiting. At the beginning, my focus is the goal and how to get there. And in the end, my focus is the reward, the completion, the prize.

So it’s here, in the beautiful process, that my heart has the opportunity to sync with His.

So wherever you are today, remember that there is purpose before the blooming begins. In the quiet of the inbetween is an opportunity to lean your head on God’s chest and hear His heart beat a rhythm that, if you listen really close, kinda sounds like “I love you.”