The Healing We Don’t Always Notice

by Rev. Sheri
Spiritual teacher, writer, and founder of Angel Messenger

Earlier this year, I had every intention of planting flowers in one of my raised garden beds.

But life—and the weather—had other plans.

Between weeks of uncooperative weather, chronic nerve pain, exhaustion, and everything else life was asking of me, the planter remained empty.

Even though I knew the circumstances weren’t entirely within my control, every time I looked at that planter, I blamed myself.

It became another reminder of something I had wanted to do but hadn’t accomplished.

I saw an empty planter.

I saw another reason to be disappointed in myself.

Then something unexpected happened.

A tiny milkweed plant appeared all on its own.

I hadn’t planted it. The wind—or perhaps a bird—had carried the seed there. Before long, I noticed a Monarch butterfly visiting that little plant.

Standing there watching that butterfly, I found myself smiling.

The planter I had been disappointed in had become home to exactly what the Monarch was looking for.

Somehow, it wasn’t empty after all.

Over the past year, I’ve been doing the difficult work of healing.

There were seasons when it honestly felt like I wasn’t making much progress at all.

I kept wondering why I wasn’t “there” yet.

Why certain memories still hurt.

Why I could so easily extend compassion to others but struggled to offer that same compassion to myself.

Like that empty planter, I kept focusing on what I believed was missing.

Then, almost without realizing it, something began to change.

I wasn’t just healing.

I was beginning to see my story differently.

For much of my life, I found it easier to look at the people who had hurt me with compassion. I could understand that they carried wounds of their own. I could see them through eyes of love.

What I struggled to see was the little girl I had once been.

She was only four years old.

Somewhere deep inside, I had carried the belief that she should have been more lovable… more worthy… somehow different.

It wasn’t a belief I consciously chose. It was simply a wound I had carried for a very long time.

Recently, I realized something that changed everything.

That little girl wasn’t unlovable.

She never was.

She was only four years old.

She was innocent.

She deserved to be loved exactly as she was.

And perhaps for the first time, I began to see her with the same compassion I had always found for everyone else.

As that realization settled into my heart, I also realized something else.

I had been so focused on how far I still had to go that I hadn’t noticed how far I had already come.

Healing didn’t happen all at once.

It happened quietly.

Prayer by prayer.

Conversation by conversation.

Choice by choice.

Until one day, I realized I was seeing myself with new eyes.

Just as that tiny milkweed had been growing unnoticed until the day the butterfly found it, healing had been taking root in places I wasn’t looking.

Nature reminds us that growth often happens where no one can see it.

Seeds push through darkness before they ever reach the sunlight.

Roots grow deep before flowers bloom.

And sometimes a neglected planter becomes the very place where new life begins.

When I first noticed that little milkweed plant, I saw it as an unexpected surprise.

The Monarch butterfly saw something more.

It recognized the value of that little plant before I did. It didn’t see an unfinished planter or what was missing. It simply found the life that was already there.

I wonder if the Creator sees us that way.

While we’re focused on everything that still feels unfinished, the Creator already sees the quiet healing taking root within us. Where we see an empty planter, the Creator sees new life. Where we see slow progress, the Creator sees a heart becoming more compassionate, more whole, and more deeply rooted in love.

The Monarch didn’t need a perfect garden.

It simply needed the life that was already there.

Perhaps we spend too much time looking for perfection while overlooking the quiet grace that has already taken root within us.

If you’ve been wondering whether you’re healing, be gentle with yourself.

The Creator is often at work long before we recognize it.

One day, you may look back and realize that while you were wondering whether anything was changing, your heart had already begun to see itself with greater compassion.

And sometimes, that is where healing truly begins.

Perhaps the healing you’ve been praying for has been quietly unfolding all along.

With peace, love and grace,

Rev. Sheri

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