WAY BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!

I was bored one day so I began to grow a plant. I learned a tremendous amount about life. Here’s what I learned.

I learned that life is a reap and sow kind of thing. The Bible says, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” People who sow crime, reap jail. People who sow unprotected sex, reap contracted diseases. People who sow water and vegetables and fruits, reap healthy bodies and long life. People who are mean tend to have more enemies. People who put more effort into their hair, makeup, and wardrobe tend to get more positive attention and admirers. It’s all commonsense, but everyone doesn’t get it. People think that they can drink, do drugs, and smoke for years, and they are surprised when they get liver or lung diseases. Whatever you are suffering of right now, you should consider whether or not you sowed the seeds for it weeks, months, or even years ago.

Just because you don’t see the results immediately does not mean that nothing is happen. When I first planted my sunflower seeds, I saw nothing for a few days. My roommate and I began to think that nothing was going to happen. But just as with prayer, I kept leaving the pot in the sun, and I kept watering it. Of course, eventually I saw a little sprout, but for some reason, I was shocked. I was amazed that it even began to grow. It’s easy to be surprised when things work out when you’re so used to being disappointed.

Life is a formula. As long as I had a good seed, enough fertile soil, water, and sunlight, there was no earthly reason why the plant should not grow. If you are praying and hoping for something, if you pay your tithes, if you believe that it will grow with just a faith the size of a mustard seed, and if you give it time IT MUST OCCUR. If you work at your job for two weeks, YOU MUST GET A PAYCHECK. If you eat healthy, YOUR BODY MUST GET HEALTHIER. If you sow a seed under the proper conditions, IT MUST GROW. If you pray and believe and have no unconfessed sins before God, IT MUST OCCUR. But the conditions must be right. Life is a formula. Had I planted my sunflower seeds in sand or cement, nothing would have happened. If I had placed my planted seeds in a dark closet, nothing would have happened. If I had placed my seeds in a pot with soil, and watered it with vinegar or bleach, nothing would have happened. It had to have water, sunlight, fertile soil, and a seed. When you make a cake, it must have flour, egg, milk, and sugar. When you pray and expect God for something, it must have prayer, tithes, repenting of sin, forgiveness of your debtors, and faith/belief. 1 + 1 x 2 does not equal 54, it equals 3. There’s no way you can make it calculate any other way. High fat eating habits and working out once a month equals obesity and heart disease. There’s no way you can make it add up any other way.

Different seeds have different seasons, so some things happen sooner than others. I remember when I was around ten years old, I planted an orange seed (believe it or not) and I had totally forgotten it was in the ground until I saw this orange ball sitting in my front lawn. (No tree! Just an orange from the ground!) I had remembered growing some type of seeds in elementary school, and it grew quickly. But a seed that produces fruit - such as oranges - must take a while. If a man prays for a wife, it may take a little longer than a man praying for a job. A man praying for a wife has to get himself and the future wife worked on first. A man praying for a job just has to wait for the phone call.

When you get what you prayed for, don’t stop taking care of it. I could have gotten lazy or silly and could have been like, “Yay! My sunflower seed sprouted a leaf!" End of story. But no. I wanted it to be the best little plant I ever grew, so I watered it faithfully and I made sure it caught all the sunlight that the day could produce. If I stopped tending to it, it would have surely died. Just as in a marriage, God can bless you with your husband, but if you just stop trying to look good for him, stop cooking, stop cleaning up, and stop having manners, your fruit will begin to wither and die. Do the same things for the plant that you did patiently and excitedly for the seed.

Sometimes things in your life need pruning. I was kind of disappointed when a few of the leaves on one of the seeds I planted began to develop dieback on the leaf. Dieback is when the leaf begins to turn yellow on the edges and the decay starts to go towards the stem. It hurt me to do so (it was very traumatic  :)  ), but I had to prune the bad things off of the plant so that it would not end up ruining the rest of the hard work, time, and energy that I had put into caring for the plant. It may hurt you to let go of people and projects that you were really into, but if it will result in hurting your being, you should let it go. Just as with gangrene. No one wants to lose a limb, but eventually that infected limb will cost you your life.

Another lesson I learned was to think big. I first put my little seed in this little, itty-bitty pot. I should have known that with a sunflower seed, you cannot plant it in a little pot! Sunflowers can probably be the tallest flowers there are, so I should have planted it into a large pot because I know that the future is big for it. I actually had to get a bigger pot for it and trans”plant” (get it?) the plant with its roots. My roommate and I were afraid it might hurt the plant, but it still grew strong. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions like moving along to something else. You may have gotten comfortable in your little world that you began in, but you must venture out in order to enlarge your growing potential. Just imagine a tall sunflower growing from a little four inch pot.

Have faith in yourself and in others. I had to make a whole paragraph just for the sheer wonder of seeds. They remind me of sperm. Just imagine that you came from a microscopic sperm, and here you are at 120-200 pounds! God is amazing. Seeds have all the potential built in it to grow into alive, growing plants that will end up tall under the right conditions. Is that not amazing? We can all be amazing people if we place ourselves in the right conditions. Why can’t you be the next president? Another sperm ended up being one; so can you. I know God places different callings on people’s lives. I for example would be a lousy basketball player. You can’t plant apple seeds and expect cantaloupe to sprout. I did not plant my sunflower seeds expecting roses to come up. But there’s no gene for being a millionaire. There’s no gene for being an entrepreneur. You can be whatever you want otherwise because just like Bill Gates, George W., and Oprah, you all were just sperm.

Last but not least, the plant would have never grown had I never sown. You reap what you sow, but you never reap what you do not sow. I had left my seeds in my room for weeks before I planted them. I wanted to, but I just never got around to it. Nothing is going to happen for you until you plant the seeds. Nothing is going to happen for you until you begin to pray. People would have thought that I had lost my mind had I told them that I was believing God for a sunflower, even though I had not even planted the seed. Don’t expect a job to come to you if you haven’t applied yet! Don’t expect a man to come for you if you sitting there looking a mess! Plant a job application! Plant some make up on your face! If you plant enough job applications, YOU WILL GET HIRED. If you look good consistently, the person will find you eventually.

What does it mean when you say someone is too sensitive?

I've been seen as emotional and sensitive all my life. I've fought it all my life too. Because I was born on July 15th, people who believe in zodiac signs say that I'm a Cancer and that Cancerians are ubersensitive. They also say that to protect their oversensitivity, Cancers exhibit a tough outer shell that makes them seem tough when they're actually the opposite. I don't do horoscopes, but I will admit that I have been guilty of using a hard outer shell to protect myself from insults and insensitive comments that impact me much more than they should. Insults that most people could care less about tend to sink into my mind and stay longer than they oughta. I'll admit that my sensitivity is one thing I HATED about my personality for a long time. I would actually pray repeatedly that I would care less about what people thought or felt about me. I prayed that every negative (and unconstructive) thing that someone said about me would bounce off without my even noticing its hostile intent. But, it appears that God has not honored that request.

I explained to a friend of mine about how the whole sensitivity thing works. I love that God gave me insight into it. It helped me not to HATE it so much in myself. I compared it to someone with a food allergy. I had a teacher who taught me that some people have such strong peanut allergies that they will get an allergic reaction if someone were to throw away PART of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a garbage can TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER. They can walk in the room and begin to itch and swell.

So this is how I related this to my friend. I told him something to the effect of this:

Just because that person has an allergy does not mean that they are weird or to be looked down upon. Just as you wouldn't look down upon someone who is very sensitive to shellfish or peanuts, you should not look down upon people who are sensitive to insults and unintentionally insensitive remarks. The people with either type of sensitivity CERTAINLY didn't ask for it. I promise I was not in the womb and asked God to make me hypersensitive to the comments of people. I PROMISE I did not. And neither did people with allergies for pet dander, pollen, peanuts, shellfish, diary products, and gluten. So treat emotionally sensitve people the same way you would treat people with other sensitivities. You wouldn't ask a friend with a pollen allergy to have a picnic in the spring under a tree unless you were evil. You wouldn't invite a lactose-intolerant friend out for ice cream unless you were cruel. You wouldn't invite your friend who was allergic to cats to your apartment with the five fluffiest cats ever unless you were a meanie! So why would you keep making hurtful comments to someone who you know cannot tolerate it?

I bet my two sisters will laugh if they read this because they've always thought I was too sensitive over the silliest things. They think I read WAY too much into comments and other's behaviors towards me. But that's because they don't have the same "emotional allergy" as I do. For example, I have a friend who is not at all sensitive to what people do or say to her; and for the longest, I envied that in her. She will have a guy not call her for three days and will not be the slightest bit offended. But I, on the otherhand, think that's disrespectful for a guy who claims to want to be with you not to contact you. She'll call or text the guy first, but I'll say, "No way! If he likes you like he claims, then he'll call or text first!" She doesn't understand why I think the way I do, but I do.

Now, I have a new appreciation for my sensitivity. My sensitivity helps me to weed out the bad guys. And she always finds out that I was right about the guys she was dating. My sensitivity is like the people with strong peanut allergies. She can't sense the "peanuts" - so to speak - like I can. I'm so ubersensitive to the "peanuts" that I can smell them a mile away while she'll just bite into a cookie without even noticing the label that reads "Warning; This product might contain peanut products."

Does that make me any better than her or her any better than me? No. We have our different strengths. Her strength is that she can tolerate a lot of male crap, and I can't. As soon as she tells me about a guy and how the first date went, I can IMMEDIATELY  tell her whether he's good or not because of my intuition (mental sensitivity). That's why my sisters need to listen to me!  :)

To make the point clearer, I will give a scenario from the point of a nonsensitive young lady and from the point of a very sensitive young lady. The scenario is that they are both seeing very similar guys. The guys have the same behaviors. On the first date, this is what happens for both of them:

Both guys pick them up 10 minutes late. Both guys tell them that they look really good in their outfits. Both guys take them to a drive-in movie theater. Both guys receive a phone call that they leave the car to answer. Both guys buy them what they want to eat. Both guys ask them if they want to go home right after the movie. Both guys don't call the next day. Here's how both of them interpet the date.

The nonsensitive young lady would say that the date went very well and that she is excited about going out again.

The very sensitive young lady would say, "How dare he pick me up late? Everyone knows that first impressions are often last impressions. If he really respected me, he would have come early. Then he told me I looked good in my outfit which was cool. The only problem was that he stared a little too long. That's disrespectful; what kind of a Christian guy stares at a woman's chest like that? Then he took me to a drive-thru movie. Is he embarrassed of me? Is he trying to hide me from a possible girlfriend? Was he just hoping to get some in the car? Then he left the car to talk on the phone for a whole 5 minutes. Was that his girlfriend that he didn't want me to know about and that he didn't want to know about me? Then he asked me if I wanted to go home right after the movie. Does that mean he wanted me to go so that he could see the girl he was on the phone with? Or did it mean that he was not enjoying himself and did not want to spend another second longer with me than he had to? And to make matters worse, he didn't even call to see how I was the next day! That jerk!"

Both people could be right. But the sensitive person is so in-tune to the fine details that the nonsensitive person wouldn't notice. Of course, the sensitive person could be WAY off. But what if she's not? What if the nonsensitive young lady is just ditzy and in La-La Land? The good thing about the sensitive person is that she won't end up in a bad marriage because of her missing the warning signs on the FIRST date. But the bad thing about the sensitive person is that she MAY NOT GET MARRIED AT ALL! She seems so sensitive that she may blow things out of proportion! The nonsensitive person's good quality is that she is very easy-going and can have a good time without being paranoid. She won't let insecurity and paranoia ruin a good relationship. The bad news about her is that she has no intuition and can end up in very bad relationships because she can't pick up on the early warning signs that say "DANGER! DANGER! Turn back now!"

I'm not nearly as sensitive as I used to be; I used to be like the overly sensitive girl in the scenario. But I've learned as I've gotten older that NO ONE is perfect. I still notice the small things, but I also cover them with grace. If someone is late, I give them the benefit of a doubt now. I think to myself that perhaps they spent a little more time in the mirror trying to look just right for me. Or maybe someone in traffic or at a store held them up. Or maybe he got lost. I say that if he stares a little too hard, that means I look great! (And the truth is that many women intentionally dress in clothes that accentuate their better features.) If he leaves the room to talk on the phone, it could be because it's just an important, private phone call he was waiting on that's none of my business, or it could be that he doesn't want to disturb the movie for me and yet really needs to take that call. (THAT would be rude if he talked while I was watching a movie!) I still don't have much patience for a guy who doesn't call the next day, but just to make a point, it could be that he heard a bunch of lame advice from his friends that said, "Dude, if you call her too soon, she'll be turned off because she'll think you're desperate. Don't call until two days later! Trust me!" Maybe he's not had a lot of dating experience and doesn't know that you are supposed to call a lady the day of or the day after a date.

Another example I gave my friend that I was explaining emotional sensitivity to is this:

I told this person that if he knew of a little person who had difficulty working in the same workplace as him because of her height, would he be so cruel as to tell her, "Oh, well! Get over it! I'm not short, so your shortness is a personal problem. It has nothing to do with me!" I explained to him that if you really care about the little person and desire to have a close friendship with her, you're going to have to get over yourself every once in awhile and accommodate her height. You'll start using the lower shelves so that she won't have to get assistance or use a ladder every time she has to get that thing off the shelf. If you really care about her, you'll "inconvenience" yourself every once in awhile to make life easier for her. The bible says to bear the burdens of one another. So if her height is a life burden for her (just as some people will ALWAYS have peanut allergies and some people will ALWAYS be emotionally sensitive), then you are supposed to put self aside to accommodate this loved one. If someone is in a wheelchair for life, what manner of person would not leave a chair off of the table so that that person can fit at the table? What manner of man would not hold the door open for them? What manner of person would not help them get in the car? If somebody is destined to be emotionally weaker than you for life, get over your emotionally strong self and help them by not saying every thing that comes into your mind.

I've met SO many people who seem to feel that it is their God-given duty to let me know that I am very skinny. I used to be very sensitive to that as a child, but I'm not anymore because I realize that I look good at my size. But I don't go around calling them fat even though, ironically, most (if not all) of them are overweight and are currently on diets and workout plans. And the reason I don't do this is because I know that many people are sensitive to that even if they're not naturally sensitive. I have NEVER went up to someone and said, "You're fat." It's just good common sense not to say things that hurt people. My sensitivity makes ME feel sensitive towards them whether they're sensitive to me or not!

After reading some of a book called The Highly Sensitive Person, I now see my sensitivity as a definite plus. I consider myself so fortunate that I can detect small details and warning signs that are important. It's done me well. I've never had a bad relationship. Never been cheated on or abused. That shows me that my sensitivity works! But I have friends and family members who have little intuition, and because of that, they end up with the greatest jerks. I feel sorry for people who can't perceive evil in people because they end up getting hurt unnecessarily. Also, my sensitivity helps me to write great notes that help many people. I can feel people's pain and struggles because of intuition. People without that hypersensitivity can't be the best psychologists, therapists, counselors, etc. because they won't have that natural ability to empathize without treating the person like another number or paycheck.

But just so that it doesn't seem like I'm bragging, I'll reemphasize the negative parts of my sensitivity. I can be so sensitive that it makes me not take risks that might be well worth it. I may not get married if I don't lose some of that sensitivity because I'll find something bad in every guy I date! I need to accept that NO ONE is going to be flawless. I have bad parts and so does everyone else. So if I can perceive bad in others, I need to understand that I too have bad parts that I would like for others to cover with grace. Another negative aspect of hypersensitivity is that you may be paranoid about things that aren't necessarily true. I may wrongly attribute a comment to be someone's attempt to tear me down, but it might just be constructive criticism to make me a better person. I may call a genuinely helpful person naive or a hater. You can think many people are "out to get you" when they aren't even thinking about you. (My big sister drove this point home for me!)

So if you're emotionally sensitive like I am, there's nothing wrong with you! You're actually special! Don't let your sensitivity take over your life though. And if you have friends and family members who don't respect that, it just makes good sense to me to distance yourself every once in a while - if not permanently - if they insist on hurting you (if they were friends). (People with pet dander allergies are not evil people for avoiding fluffy pets!)