A greenhouse owner hired a gardener who was a very hard worker and careful with the plants.  Even with all this care and attention, the plants were not doing well.  So the owner hired a gardener with more experience.  The plants immediately improved.

The first gardener had handled the plants tenderly when he transplanted them so the roots would not be disturbed.  The new gardener, however, was rough with them and handled them in a way that appeared careless to the first gardener.

It turns out that the roots were packed too tightly and didn’t have room to breathe.   The experienced gardener knew that loosening the dirt around the roots would free them to stretch and grow.

People can be compared with plants.  Handling some people with only gentleness and praise will keep them tied up where they are and prevent them from growing.  Sometimes people need to be shaken up a bit so they will leave complacency behind and seek to be their best.

Have you ever found yourself shaken up by life, which was very uncomfortable for you?  It hurt to see some things fall away and to be unhappy with where life seemed to be taking you.  However, as time passed you looked back and realized that it was this shaking time that actually turned things around to the positive for you.  I’ve heard people share of being laid off from a job they didn’t like much anyway and then have the freedom to do what they had always dreamed of doing.  Others have told me how a serious illness, although extremely difficult at the time, caused them to gain a new perspective on life.

Don’t run from the shaking times.  Acknowledge what is happening and then enjoy the growth that results.  Then you can live . . . your life to the fullest.