Did you know that bamboo grown for timber takes three years to germinate and sprout? Three years the bamboo farmer needs to water the seed, every day. For a thousand days, the farmer needs to show up and water the ground, not knowing when a green sprout breaks through the ground or if it ever comes. But once it does, it grows up to 35 inches in one day, or 90 feet in three months.

Think about that.

After I had finished graduate school and started private practice, colleagues said it takes about three years to build a private practice. Three years of showing up every day and watering the seed I had put into the ground when I decided to become a counselor.

The first year, I watered and surveyed the lands each day for growth. (Hey, maybe I’ll make an exception and get lucky without all this effort.)

The second year went by the same way.

But in the third year, I started to look up. I took my eyes off the ground, away from expecting that something should finally and seriously be happening. I still kept watering but turned my eyes to the water and to the sky. The water was running, the sky turning, time passing. I am grateful. Sure, it’d be a blast to see the timber of my efforts grow, but I am not sure it’d surpass this gratitude. I am just glad for the privilege to show up and love what is.

What seeds do you have in the ground? How do you tend to them?

Where does your love call you to service? How do you show up?