Every morning as I walk through our front door, I pass an outdoor pot plant - some kind of succulent - that is living its best life. The little plant has green leaves everywhere and it just beams at us when we pass by. It has not always been this way though. During 2020, we were given the gift of this seedling in a pot just weeks before Phoebe (our border collie puppy) joined our family. One day Phoebe was bored and she chewed up the pot and dismembered the plant - all that was left was a stump and a few roots. Hoping against hope I tried replanting it (and storing the new pot out of Phoebe's reach). But nothing happened. It was depressing to keep inspecting this little half-chewed stump in its pot each day and see absolutely no signs of life.
Then a miracle! One day, right on the stump of the branch that Phoebe had amputated, a little bud started forming. It was tiny, but what it meant was that during those weeks when I thought that nothing was happening for that plant, I couldn't have been more wrong. Clearly a root system was developing and the plant was being nourished by sunshine and water and soil. All of this was taking place out of sight, however. There was absolutely no outward sign of life.
Sometimes, during the most barren moments of our lives it seems that nothing is happening - there is no sign of life. And yet we are mistaken. God is at work, but we cannot see it. It is underground work, hidden work. The apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth invites us to imagine the secret work that is happening beneath the surface: He says “we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor 4:16-18)
Take heart if you don't see green leaves yet - God is at work in you and me!