Tomorrow is Not Today

Poetry by Kingsley
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[00:00:00] What if, what feels like the end is actually the beginning? Because there's a big difference between being buried and being planted. What if the darkest season of your life isn't your burial but your planting? What if what feels like the end is actually the beginning? Because there's a big difference between being buried and being planted.

Think of a flower. Before it's ever a flower, it's a seed or maybe a bulb planted deep in the soil where it's cold, dark, and wet. It's buried in dirt with worms and fertilizer and completely covered, unseen in what feels like an abyss. You don't even know which way is up. You've been tossed out, discarded, buried, and now.

You're all alone with [00:01:00] no sign of the potential and possibility of what could come. You've been tossed aside, discarded, buried, and as far as you can tell, this is it. And then something strange happens. You feel a bit of a pain, more pain than before. And as you struggle through it, as you endure it, something new appears a shoot.

You weren't expecting it. You don't even know what it's for. How would this help down here? It starts to move slowly, but it is moving, and then your skin, the only thing that's kept you warm, the only thing that's protected you begins to peel away. Great. Now I'm going to be even colder. You're confused, vulnerable, exposed.

What little familiarity and comfort you had is falling apart. Where is this going? [00:02:00] What is happening? And just as you're about to lose it completely, the chute breaks through the last layer of soil light, daylight For the first time, Ray of hope, you look around and see a world you've never imagined existed.

Color, beauty, life. There's other plants, flowers, there's, there's birds overhead, a vast blue sky, warmth, sunshine, you're mesmerized. Gratitude feels your new green shoots. This world is nothing like the one you just came from. And for the first time, you understand I am not stuck anymore. And just as you begin to trust this new world.

The sky changes, white and gray clouds roll in. What's that? Then a droplet [00:03:00] rain heavier and then relentless, and then it eases, and then it's pounding again, and then it just stops. And you thought the storm would push you back into your cold, dark underworld you just escaped from you. Imagine being crushed or.

Bent over so far, you'd never be able to stand again. But slowly the clouds part. The sun returns relief. The day gets brighter and warmer again. Everything is going to be okay until it doesn't feel like relief anymore. The heat intensifies, it burns. It's a different kind of pressure. Can I handle this? And then it hits you.

Not long ago you were buried in darkness. Then you found the light, then came the storm, then the heat, and you survived all of it. You look [00:04:00] again, now you're taller, stronger, you can see further than ever before, and the cycle continues. The wind comes, it's fierce. It's threatening to knock you over, but that wind forces your roots deeper.

You stand taller again. Then comes a new pain right at the top. Familiar but different and slowly it opens a bud. You realize something now. Everything you thought would end you was shaping you. The darkness, the storms, the heat, the pruning, all of it. And now here you are standing tall, offering beauty, giving something to the world, not despite what you've endured, but because of what you've endured.

[00:05:00] This is the journey of life. We can endure the seasons if we can trust the process. We realize that those seasons were never punishment. They were preparation. Maybe your beauty hasn't been released yet, maybe it was, and the pruning she has came stripping away what you thought defined you, and right now you feel exposed, unloved, possibly unlovable.

Pruning creates space for new buds, more and more beautiful buds than ever before, and no one can tell you how many will grow, some of the impact of your beauty and purpose. You'll see immediately. Some you won't notice for years, some you may never see it all. But by simply pushing through, by [00:06:00] being who you are always meant to be, you change the world, and one day when your season ends, you'll make way for new life returning to the ground, not in defeat, but as nourishment and growth for future generations.

Fuel for future beauty. This. Is your legacy a legacy you can be proud of?