Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about the winepress.
Everyone loves talking about crushing because they already know what came after it.
The oil.
The wine.
The purpose.
But no one envies the olive.
No one volunteers to be the grape.
Because being pressed isn’t poetic while it’s happening.
It’s painful.
It’s confusing.
It’s lonely.
It feels like every ounce of you is being squeezed out, and you’re expected to call it growth.
And maybe that’s the hardest part about these seasons.
Everyone talks about what comes after.
They tell you about the testimony, the breakthrough, the purpose that will emerge from the pain.
But when you’re in the middle of the pressing, you don’t see the oil.
You don’t see the wine.
You only feel the pressure.
You only feel the weight.
You only wonder why something that is supposed to produce something beautiful has to hurt this much.
The olive doesn’t know it’s becoming oil while it’s being crushed.
The grape doesn’t know it’s becoming wine while it’s being pressed.
All it knows is that something is happening to it.
Something uncomfortable.
Something painful.
Something it never would have chosen for itself.
And maybe that’s what makes these seasons so difficult.
Because sometimes we mistake the process for punishment.
We assume that because something hurts, something must be wrong.
We assume that because things aren’t going the way we imagined, we must have missed God somewhere along the way.
But pruning doesn’t mean punishment.
Pressure doesn’t always mean abandonment.
Sometimes what feels like everything being taken away is actually preparation for something new being formed.
The process is the process.
It doesn’t always make sense while you’re in it.
It doesn’t always feel like growth while you’re growing.
Sometimes growth looks like losing things.
Sometimes growth looks like waiting.
Sometimes growth looks like being stretched in ways you never asked for.
But the same hands that allow the pressing are the same hands that understand what the pressing is producing.
The olive doesn’t have to understand the winepress to become oil.
And maybe we don’t always have to understand the season we’re in to trust the One who is leading us through it.