Phototropism: Turning Toward the Light

lmb523
9 hours ago
5 min read

I heard the word phototropism, and I stopped what I was doing..

Not because it was unfamiliar, but because it was — without any question — the most accurate description of something I had been trying to describe recently. For the first time, I had a word for something I had been doing my entire life — surviving darkness by turning toward light. I hope this will help someone else get through their own darkness.

Phototropism is the process by which a plant turns toward light. It does not happen sometimes. It does not happen when conditions are good or when the plant feels ready. It happens always. The turning is not a decision the plant makes. It is simply what the plant does because it is what the plant is built to do. No matter how poor the soil. No matter how long it has gone without water. No matter how many times it has been knocked down. It turns toward the light.

Now think about your own life.

Something happens that you did not see coming. A relationship ends and takes more than just the person with it — it takes your confidence, your routine, your sense of who you are. You are standing at a point where the road splits. One direction is familiar even though it is dark. Isolation feels safer than trying again. Bitterness feels more honest than hope. The path toward darkness does not announce itself — it just feels like the path of least resistance.

Which way do you turn?

You get a diagnosis. Something that changes what you thought your future looked like. The easy response is to stop planning, stop dreaming, stop showing up for the parts of life that suddenly feel pointless. Why build something if it might be taken from you? Why invest in yourself when the investment feels uncertain? The darkness in that moment is not dramatic — it is quiet, and it sounds reasonable.

Which way do you turn?

You grow up in an environment where the people who were supposed to protect you did not. The damage from that kind of beginning shows up in every relationship, every decision, every moment of self doubt that follows you into adulthood. The paths that kind of pain produces are well documented — cycles that repeat, walls that never come down, a life spent managing wounds instead of living. None of those outcomes require any effort. They happen on their own when there is no turning.

Which way do you turn?

You lose someone. Not in a way that makes sense or comes with closure. Just gone. And the grief is not a wave that passes — it is a permanent change in the landscape of your life. Everything looks different after. The darkness there is not a choice you make, it is a place you find yourself in without knowing how you got there. What you do next is where the turning happens.

Which way do you turn?

This is where the concept of phototropism becomes more than science.

A plant does not turn toward light because the conditions are perfect. It turns because that is its nature. The turning is built in at a level deeper than circumstance. And when life is at its worst — when the soil is bad and the water is gone and the weight is too much — there is a phrase that captures the same instinct in human terms.

Look up.

Not as a suggestion. Not as a motivational phrase. As a direction. Literally and figuratively — look up. Because that is where the light is. That is where the turning leads. And when you look up long enough, consistently enough, even in the dark — something holds you there. Something steadies the turning and keeps it from reversing.

That something is not an accident.

Addiction does not happen because someone chose darkness. It happens because someone stopped turning toward the light long enough for the darkness to settle in. The same is true for bitterness, for isolation, for a life that slowly contracts until there is nothing left in it but survival. These are not starting points. They are what happens at the end of a road that began with a turn in the wrong direction.

You always have a choice about which way to turn.

Not always an easy choice. Not always a choice that feels available in the moment. But it is there. Even when everything in your circumstances is pointing you toward the dark — the capacity to turn toward light is built into you.

The plant does not know why it turns toward the light. It just does.

Maybe you do not always know why either. Maybe you cannot fully explain why you chose to get up that one time when staying down would have been so much easier. Maybe you cannot explain why you reached out instead of retreating, why you tried again instead of quitting, why you looked up when everything around you was telling you to look away.

You do not have to explain it.

You just have to keep turning.

Micah 7:8

"Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light."

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Give My Friend a Call

No matter what's in front of me, I give my Friend a call

He tells me not to worry; He will take care of it all.

I presented him with my dilemma, of which He already knew

How could I write a poem to share my talent with you.

Together with Him by my side, we began to write

The words that I would share here with you tonight.