Am I Cultivating A Garden Or Am I Just Here? Priscilla Boateng '21

I have always been extremely obsessed with the fruits of the spirit. Embodying them, living by them, being them. Having a life that centered around these spiritual fruits have been my goal since I truly became a Christian my senior year of high school. I thought and still think each characteristic is more than beautiful.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Against such things there is no law because how could any person, country, state, city be against qualities like this? They couldn't! Although I have this strong desire to embody these fruits, at times I’ve wondered if my yearning is anything more than just that:

…  yearning…

A desire that stays a desire and never leads to any resemblance. Am I cultivating a garden or am I just here? What does it ACTUALLY look like to be loving, joyful, peaceful, etc. and why after all these years of being a Christian do I feel like I still don’t know?

Saying this year has been difficult one for all of us would be a huge understatement. I am sure ten years from now we’re all going to look back and realize just how hard it truly was. This year has brought a storm of emotions that at times I can’t identify. With those emotions have also come a desire to want to navigate them properly, but even more than that to not let my turbulent emotions affect how I interact with the people I care about and care for. Instead, I desire to demonstrate patience, self-control, gentleness, and kindness when I speak of, interact with, and think of others even if at the moment I may be frustrated or angry.

As Christians we are called to look more like Jesus.

To have a heart like his.

And Jesus perfectly and wholly embodied the fruits of the spirit.

I want to look more like that.

At times, I believe my belief that I’m not growing fruit is due to society's views of black women, that maybe I am hyper-criticizing myself because I feel as though I need to always be the kindest or the gentlest in the room in order to not automatically be seen as mean, angry, or insensitive. And very often that is true and I am being over critical. But there have also been many times when I have just failed, maybe not externally but internally.

I have no ending to this blog post, it was more of a reflection than anything. But, a part of me wrote it because I’m sure other Christian’s also struggle to embody the fruits of the spirit. And, I want to let you know that it’s a process, it’s picking up our cross, it’s remembering that meditating in the Lord's words is the only proper soil for our seeds to prosper and it’s asking yourself everyday: “Am I cultivating a garden or am I just here?”