Have you ever found yourself staring at a dream or goal and thinking, "God, why is this taking SO long? I've done all the 'right' things—why aren't things happening already?"
Lord knows, I've been there. Maybe you've planted the seed of a new habit, a business idea, or even a fresh identity after a big life change—and you're waiting, sometimes impatiently, for that tiny seed to bloom into something beautiful.
This very struggle is what we're tackling in this week's episode of Nourished to Bloom, "Ep.60 Having Patience With the Process." If you've ever felt like you're hustling with all your might, waiting for that breakthrough or an ounce of progress, this one's for you.✨
Here's the KEY🔑: There's ALWAYS an order and process to growth—no matter how much we want to skip to the good part.
🌱 This Week on Nourished to Bloom:
✨ Why our culture's instant gratification pressure can keep us from honoring the pace God sets for our lives
🌺 The powerful analogy of planting seeds—how patience and unseen growth are part of the harvest (Mark 4:26!)
👶 Real-life, moving examples: coaching women through "middle motherhood" and watching a dream business (yes, with llamas!) take YEARS to become reality
💬 Practical encouragement for moms navigating identity shifts, anyone struggling to build or break habits, or anyone in a season of "in between"
📖 Simple, anchoring scriptures: Galatians 6:9 ("Do not grow weary…for in due season we shall reap if we do not give up") and Romans 8:25 (waiting in hope and perseverance)
Ready to be reminded that God is ALWAYS working—even when you can't see it? Listen to Ep.60 "Having Patience With the Process" from Nourished to Bloom.
Next Steps:
- Check out my guest spot on the Don't Mom Alone Podcast
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
00:00:00
So in last week's podcast episode, we talked about the idea
00:00:04
of doing it afraid, right? Of being able to step
00:00:07
out in holy boldness and doing what the Lord is calling it and
00:00:11
asking us to do. But so often when we do take
00:00:15
those steps in holy boldness, we have the
00:00:18
tendency to want to get ahead of ourselves. We want the fruits
00:00:22
of our labor to just kind of show up immediately
00:00:26
without really having to do much of the labor part.
00:00:30
But we have to remember that God created with an
00:00:34
order in mind, with a process in mind. And so in
00:00:37
today's episode, we're going to talk about the idea of having
00:00:41
patience with the process. Hey
00:00:44
there. Welcome back to another episode of the Nourish to Bloom
00:00:48
podcast. I am your host, Kara Trochta, and so happy
00:00:52
to be here with you this week. And
00:00:56
I really just kind of had this, like, phrase
00:00:59
really come to mind over the last week of just this idea of
00:01:03
having patience with the process and how many times
00:01:07
I often find myself just kind of wanting to. To get to the end
00:01:11
of something or to have it come to completion or
00:01:14
for the success to come or just kind of have
00:01:18
those fruits of. Of that labor just kind of instantaneously
00:01:22
happen. And I think a lot of that can be kind of forced upon us
00:01:25
through. Through that societal pressure of. Of instant gratification,
00:01:29
right? We. We want it. We want it now. We don't want to have to
00:01:32
wait. And I think that sometimes we kind of take that
00:01:36
same attitude when it comes to the goals that we're
00:01:40
working towards or wanting to build new habits
00:01:44
or break old habits. We want to be able to
00:01:47
sometimes, what it feels like, just put in a day's worth of work and be
00:01:50
like, okay, today, like, I was really disciplined. I was really
00:01:54
faithful to this. This new thing that I'm doing. And by
00:01:57
tomorrow, like, it should just. I should just have success, right? Or it should
00:02:01
just. The. The change should just happen. But we
00:02:05
just have to remember that that is really not the way that
00:02:08
God designed things to work, that he
00:02:12
created everything with an order in mind, that
00:02:15
there's a. A process to everything that we're engaging in.
00:02:19
And there's a process that has to occur when we.
00:02:23
When we set a new goal and we're working towards a goal. There's a
00:02:27
process that has to kind of fall into place when we're trying to build
00:02:31
new habits or break old habits. And I just.
00:02:34
Today, I want to share just a few reflections on what this
00:02:38
idea of process means, how we can
00:02:42
kind of use some different analogies or metaphors, because my
00:02:45
grammatical. Gosh, I don't even know
00:02:49
the word. Sometimes I forget the difference between a metaphor and
00:02:53
an analogy. So it's one of these two. But just
00:02:57
use some different things, some different ideas that we see on an
00:03:01
everyday basis, as well as some scripture to help us with
00:03:04
this idea of having patience with the process
00:03:08
and really resting in the fact that there is a
00:03:11
process that we have to recognize and embody and embrace
00:03:15
the idea that in whatever it is that we're engaging in, that there's a process.
00:03:18
Process that has to occur in
00:03:22
order for the fruits of our labor to become that
00:03:26
abundant harvest that we are. That we are desiring, that the
00:03:29
Lord promises us. And so I really want
00:03:33
to kind of think about a couple of things when we think about
00:03:37
how God created with an order in mind. So the first
00:03:41
kind of reflection is really about
00:03:45
gardening, right? And growing things that when you plant a
00:03:49
seed, it doesn't become a flower the day after you
00:03:52
plant it. You have to plant the seed in the
00:03:56
soil. You have to tend it, you have to
00:03:59
cultivate it, you have to water it. It needs sunlight. And
00:04:03
from that seed, there then becomes a root
00:04:07
and then a stem and then a bud, and then
00:04:11
finally the flower or finally, you know, the vegetable, what, whatever
00:04:14
it is that. That you're growing. There's an order and a process that
00:04:18
that seed contains all the power that it could
00:04:22
ever need inside of it to become that
00:04:25
flower or that vegetable or that fruit, whatever was part of
00:04:29
God's design for it, right? But there was a process
00:04:33
that had to happen. We can also think about with
00:04:36
children how a baby just doesn't get up and
00:04:40
walk. There's a process to that, right? First they
00:04:44
have to be able to, you know, push up on. On their
00:04:48
hands, right? We have to help them engage in tummy time. They have
00:04:51
to be able to sit up on their own and. And then they
00:04:55
crawl and. And then they. You pull up and
00:04:58
then they kind of walk along a wall, walk along something. And then
00:05:02
finally, you know, they take a couple of steps and then they fall. But there's
00:05:05
an order and a process to how a baby walks.
00:05:09
There's steps and things that have to happen before that
00:05:12
baby can walk. So there is a process and an
00:05:16
order to each of these things. And we have to
00:05:20
remember to be patient and steadfast in these. Because
00:05:23
oftentimes it's. It's in the things that we aren't
00:05:26
seeing that God is working. And we have
00:05:30
to allow God's order and process to Work.
00:05:34
And so I wanna reflect on the parable of the growing seed that can be
00:05:38
found in Mark, chapter 4, verse 26 through 30,
00:05:42
to help us with this idea of. Of things
00:05:45
having a. A process. And so what we see
00:05:49
in Mark, chapter 4, verse 26,
00:05:53
he said, this is how it is with the kingdom of God. It
00:05:57
is this. It is. It is as if a man were
00:06:01
to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and
00:06:04
rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he
00:06:08
knows not how. Of its own accord, the land yields fruit.
00:06:12
First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the
00:06:16
ear. And when the grain is right, he wields the sickle at once,
00:06:20
for the harvest has come.
00:06:23
So this parable illustrates the growth of the
00:06:27
kingdom of God and that that growth, in
00:06:31
a way, is not directly controlled or understood
00:06:34
by. By the sower. So we can take that and we can apply
00:06:38
this to our own goals, to our own changes to the own
00:06:42
process of healing, is that
00:06:46
this growth that happens is not directly
00:06:49
controlled or understood by us, the sower.
00:06:53
And this parable emphasizes that the seed, being the word of God,
00:06:57
is planted. Then it grows naturally, even while the sower sleeps,
00:07:00
and rises without their explicit knowledge or control.
00:07:04
And so it highlights that God's work is often unseen and
00:07:08
unfolds gradually like the natural processes of
00:07:12
growth in the earth. And so this is where the idea
00:07:16
of patience is really important, because we have to have
00:07:19
patience through this process, through this order, because when we
00:07:23
do, we are giving God the time
00:07:27
that he needs to do the work behind the scenes.
00:07:32
What we don't see or know that he is doing. But
00:07:36
there are things that need to happen for his plan
00:07:39
and his will to prevail, for this, this
00:07:43
abundant harvest to become a
00:07:46
reality, whatever that abundant harvest is in our
00:07:50
own lives. And so I have a couple of examples that I wanted to
00:07:54
share of how what this looks like. A couple of years ago,
00:07:58
I was doing some life coaching specifically for
00:08:01
moms who were in this phase of life that I called middle
00:08:05
motherhood, which, for the record, I'm kind of feeling a nudge and a pool from
00:08:09
God to explore that idea again of coaching moms and
00:08:12
middle motherhood. But the idea behind it was that
00:08:16
there's so many women who, when
00:08:19
their kids go, become school age and they're in school
00:08:23
and they're kind of out of the house throughout the day. It's like we as
00:08:26
moms have this identity crisis. We don't really know necessarily
00:08:30
who we really are because we have maybe been
00:08:34
stay at home mom, or our life has just looked different since motherhood
00:08:37
hit. And now our kids are school age and they're out of the
00:08:41
house, but you're still very much needed, just
00:08:45
maybe not from the hours of 8 to 3.
00:08:49
And so we have this identity crisis because we don't really know who we
00:08:52
are. We don't really know what we should be doing with this time. We don't
00:08:56
know what we want to be doing with this time. And so that was what
00:09:00
I was coaching women through at that time, is how
00:09:03
to combat that identity crisis, be able to set
00:09:07
some goals and to take some action and to just kind of figure out that
00:09:11
next direction, that next chapter in their life, knowing
00:09:14
that whatever they pursue next doesn't have to be the forever thing.
00:09:18
Well, so part of being able to market and
00:09:22
advertise this middle motherhood life coaching
00:09:26
was I reached out to a couple of different podcasts to
00:09:29
be a guest on the podcast to explain about
00:09:33
this middle motherhood coaching and. And the fact that I could help women in this
00:09:37
very specific part of life be able to have a sense of direction and where
00:09:41
to go and who they are. And so one of the podcasts that I happened
00:09:44
to reach out to on Instagram was called Don't Mom Alone. And I don't
00:09:48
know if you're familiar with it or not. Um, I have
00:09:52
to say I wasn't super familiar with it when I reached out to
00:09:56
the host, but I reached out to her and I said, this is
00:09:59
who I am. I was interested in being a guest on your
00:10:03
podcast. What is your process? How could I go about doing this? And
00:10:07
she replied back to me on Instagram, and she said, well, I'm not really taking
00:10:11
guests right now. We're kind of, you know, have our thing
00:10:14
booked out, but go ahead and fill out this form and if
00:10:18
I, you know, if something pops up, I'll let you know. And I said, okay.
00:10:21
So I replied back to her and I said, okay, thanks for the opportunity. I'll
00:10:24
fill this form out. And by the way, here's what I do. I am
00:10:28
coaching women through middle motherhood. I'm helping them
00:10:32
be able to, you know, discover, rediscover who they are in this new phase of
00:10:36
motherhood and have a sense of direction. I just left it at that
00:10:40
and kind of just went on about my business. And
00:10:44
two days later, I happen to be on Instagram and I get a message
00:10:48
from the podcast host. And she said,
00:10:52
so since you reached out to me, I've had two
00:10:55
women Reach out to me to ask me if I
00:10:59
had any episodes specifically
00:11:03
about what it is that you coach on that. They, you know, we're kind of
00:11:06
going through this transition in life, and they just felt like they didn't have a
00:11:10
sense of purpose. They didn't know what to be. They didn't know what they were
00:11:13
supposed to be doing. And she's like, so I kind of take that as a
00:11:17
sign from God that I need to have you as a
00:11:20
guest on the podcast. So needless to say, I
00:11:24
went on the Don't Mama Alone podcast, unbeknownst to me
00:11:28
how much of a massive following she had, and then really was able
00:11:32
to coach 10 women through this really amazing and
00:11:36
interesting trans life transition. But
00:11:40
that, to me, is proof of how
00:11:44
God has to have that space, we have to have that patience for
00:11:47
him to work behind the scenes. That there's no other way
00:11:51
to explain what happened with me being able to be a
00:11:55
host on that podcast other than it was God working behind
00:11:58
the scenes. It was God working night and day like
00:12:02
the, the, the Sower experiences in the Parable of the Growing
00:12:06
Seed. Right. And so we have to have that
00:12:09
patience now. I, I felt like I
00:12:13
did my part, I put myself out there and, and I didn't kind of give
00:12:16
up. I, you know, reached out to other podcasts and stuff like that, but
00:12:20
I saw that God gave me this gift and this opportunity, and
00:12:24
so I took the first step. And in taking that first step, it
00:12:27
allowed him that space to work behind the
00:12:31
scenes for me to become a guest on this podcast, to then be able
00:12:35
to coach women through this life
00:12:38
transition. Now kind of piggybacking on
00:12:41
that. One of the clients that I worked with, she was
00:12:45
a functional medicine doctor in Colorado. And
00:12:49
when we started working together, she was very much experiencing this kind of
00:12:53
identity crisis. She had. She had a job, she
00:12:56
had a career. She worked full time.
00:13:00
And the problem was is that
00:13:03
she didn't have what she felt like was a good work life balance. She didn't
00:13:07
feel like she had her priorities where they needed to be.
00:13:10
Meaning was a lot of time and energy spent on
00:13:13
this business that she wasn't super passionate about, that she felt
00:13:17
like just wasn't aligning with where God was
00:13:20
calling her in her life in that moment. And
00:13:24
so what we worked on was one, being able to
00:13:28
root her identity in Christ. And
00:13:31
then what she shared with me is that one of the dreams that she
00:13:35
had was to be able to create.
00:13:41
I might say it wrong, but to be able to
00:13:44
create this company. That would pack
00:13:48
llamas for people who were going out
00:13:52
and. And on. On, like, long hikes in. In
00:13:55
the back country. So they would pack these llamas and those llamas
00:13:59
would carry all the gear that they would need for their trip and,
00:14:03
and their hike in their camping in the back country. She said she
00:14:07
experienced it once herself or a. Once or twice
00:14:10
herself being able to do that. And she just really fell in love with it.
00:14:13
She fell in love with the animal. She fell in love with the idea. She
00:14:16
fell in love with the idea of being able to help and
00:14:20
serve other people in this capacity. She loved everything
00:14:24
about it. It was very much a passion of hers. But she struggled
00:14:27
with leaving this career, this what she
00:14:31
went to school for, this degree that she held to go and pursue this
00:14:35
thing that she felt was really going to allow her to
00:14:39
serve and, and fulfill
00:14:43
what God was calling her to. It was going to allow her to
00:14:47
do something that she really loved doing, but then also being able to
00:14:51
be present as a mom the way she wanted to be.
00:14:54
And she and I worked together in,
00:14:58
let's see, how many years ago was this?
00:15:01
Um, it'll be three years
00:15:05
ago this next November. So we worked together in
00:15:09
the fall of 2022. And so
00:15:13
we worked together for six months. We kind of laid out this plan. She had
00:15:16
some really great tools, had some really good things to
00:15:20
walk away from. And I would. I would have to say that the number one
00:15:23
thing that she took away from it was when I told her that the next
00:15:27
thing isn't the forever thing. And she just kind of took that as
00:15:31
the next thing isn't the forever thing. She could try this. She could try
00:15:34
this business, and it may or may not
00:15:38
work well, I have to say, in December of
00:15:41
this last year, so almost two years after we worked together,
00:15:45
she sent me an email and she said,
00:15:49
I'm not sure if you're still doing your coaching business, but I wanted to
00:15:52
let you know that I found our session so helpful, and I'm starting to pursue
00:15:56
my crazy dream. And she shared her website with me. So her company
00:16:00
is called Four Sisters Llama Company and they're
00:16:04
based out of Colorado and they pack llamas.
00:16:07
And, you know, she ended it with, you know, thank you for all you
00:16:11
did to help me pursue my passion of medicine, but also llamas.
00:16:15
And so she had this dream that we spent
00:16:19
some time working on, but it took her two years for it to
00:16:22
finally become what it was that she wanted to
00:16:26
do. Two years of being patient through the
00:16:30
process two years of taking
00:16:33
steps that she knew were the right steps to take, but steps
00:16:37
that allowed the Lord to work behind the scenes, to have these
00:16:41
things fall into place that would allow her to pursue this
00:16:45
business and to pursue this passion that she had. And so
00:16:48
I hope that these two stories offer
00:16:52
some perspective, offer some inspiration,
00:16:56
and empower you to trust and be patient through that
00:17:00
process of whatever it is that you're trying to do. If you are
00:17:04
working on healing your relationship with food
00:17:07
and your body and it's not going as fast as you want it to,
00:17:11
have patience with the process. If you
00:17:15
are working on building a new habit
00:17:18
and some days you just can't stick with
00:17:22
it, be patient through the process. If you're trying to
00:17:26
undo a habit that you don't want anymore and you find yourself
00:17:29
falling backwards, be patient through the process.
00:17:33
If you're embarking on a new adventure, if you are trying to
00:17:37
discover who you are in a transition of life, if you are
00:17:40
trying to find what the Lord is calling you
00:17:44
to be patient through the process. And so I want
00:17:48
to end today with just two pieces of scripture
00:17:51
that over this next week I want you to spend some time with, sit with
00:17:55
it and meditate on it and see what the Lord is trying to tell
00:17:58
you. The first is Galatians 6:9.
00:18:02
It reads, and let us not grow weary in doing
00:18:06
good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not give
00:18:09
up.
00:18:14
So in whatever it is that you're pursuing, do not
00:18:17
grow weary in doing what you know that the Lord is asking you to do,
00:18:21
the actions that you know that you are supposed to take.
00:18:26
Because we are promised a
00:18:29
harvest, an abundance if we do not give up on that.
00:18:34
And the next comes from Romans 8:25
00:18:38
but if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it
00:18:42
with but if we hope for what we do not yet
00:18:45
see, we wait for it with perseverance.
00:18:50
We have to be patient and confident in waiting
00:18:53
when we're looking for something that hasn't happened yet,
00:18:57
and trusting that through perseverance, through hope,
00:19:01
through doing the actions that the Lord is asking us to, that
00:19:04
because we know him, because we know that he is good, that he
00:19:08
will deliver on that promise, that he will deliver on
00:19:12
that abundance, that whatever it is that he
00:19:16
is calling you to pursue will bear good
00:19:19
fruit. I hope
00:19:23
you have a beautiful and blessed week. I thank you
00:19:27
for joining me each and every week, and I hope that you can
00:19:30
walk away this week feeling a little more inspired, a little
00:19:34
more trusting, a little more
00:19:39
confident in being able to be patient with the
00:19:42
process. Remember, beauty held as a seed, beauty shared
00:19:46
is a flower. It is your time to bloom.
00:19:50
Until next week.