Fermentation Happens Without Me

I used to think fermentation required constant attention. I checked the jars every day—sometimes more than once—turning them slightly, watching bubbles rise and disappear. I listened for signs of activity, afraid that if I stopped paying attention, something would go wrong.

But fermentation does not need my supervision.

Once the vegetables are washed, cut, salted, and sealed, my work is finished. The real transformation begins only after I step back. In the dark, without noise or instruction, something living starts to move. Sugars break down. Acids form. Flavor deepens. Nothing looks dramatic from the outside, yet everything is changing.

During the pandemic, my life felt painfully inactive. There was nothing to manage, nothing to improve, nothing to chase. Waiting for love, for companionship, for a future that felt paused—I wondered if I was failing simply by standing still. I mistook stillness for absence. I mistook silence for neglect.

Fermentation taught me otherwise.

The jars on my counter reminded me that growth does not announce itself. The most important work happens when no one is watching—not even me. I could not rush it by checking more often, and I could not improve it by interfering. All I could do was trust that what I had prepared with care would be carried forward by time.

My faith began to shift then. I stopped praying for visible progress and started praying for trust. I believed that while I was alone in my apartment, managing rent, fear, and quiet days, God was also at work elsewhere—shaping another life, another heart, another story that would one day intersect with mine. Just as I could not see the fermentation happening inside the jars, I could not see how God was working beyond my small room.

Letting go was not easy. Closing the lid felt final. It meant accepting that I could not control the outcome. But fermentation requires surrender. Too much interference spoils the process. Love, I realized, may require the same kind of faith.

When the time finally comes to open a jar, the vegetables are no longer what they were. They carry time inside them. Waiting has changed them—not into something hurried or forced, but into something complete.

Perhaps my waiting was not empty after all. Perhaps it was full of unseen work, quietly preparing me for a life I could not yet taste.