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Friday, May 16, 2008

Find your soil or die




In November of 2002 I was talking with a young Lady residing in Canada, who was going through a rough period in her life. She was married, unemployed and a Christian. Ironically these three areas were her greatest areas of struggle. She felt as though she was being stifled at her church, just barely hanging on. Her marriage was almost over and she was just not getting hooked up with the right job and her finance was drying up.

She and I spoke for hours as she shared her heart and one story after another. She was perplexed and sad, but hopeful. She was desperately searching for answers and among the answers she needed was to ‘find herself.’ So after listening to her full story, I made a comment which many may have regarded as too simple response for such a multi-faceted problem.

In my response I told her, “Find your soil or die”. I was so moved and surprised by the profoundness of the statement that I went further to write about it in my book, “The Colour and Power of Your Thoughts – Inspiring, witty and motivating words.”
I made sure to comment that finding your soil doesn’t necessarily mean going in search of a new environment.
Sometimes it means finding a more fertile area in the ground in which you have been planted. Sometimes it requires creating that environment for your own survival.

I do not know much about farming and gardening, but I do happen to know that sometimes a plant is drying or dying and despite your best efforts it just will not flourish. So you uproot it and plant it somewhere else and amazing results starts to happen. The plant becomes revived, it begins to flourish and bear fruit. I thought to myself, ‘what an awesome message.’


In the same breath you might be struggling where you are and barely making it. You may even be operating at a level ten times less than you were created to be. You could be earning more, helping more, and giving more, living healthier mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. You are just not living victoriously. Where you are planted is not fertile enough for you to grow.

Your roots are desperately in need of a better soil, a better environment. So you decide it is time for a change; a change of heart, a change of attitude, a change of friends and sometimes even a change of your support group. I am so touched by this, that every time I begin to talk or write about this subject, my hands become filled with goose pimples.

I spoke with the young Lady late last year and in a brief exchange she told me she was now living in Florida and felt as though she had just started living.