Root Growth

 

But time has gradually inscribed on my heart that winter, with all its surface bleakness,  

is for the vegetative world a time of intense creativity.   

While barren to the human eye,

trees in winter experience their greatest root growth. 

Their life force reached out, plunged deep

roots into the sustaining soil.

So it is with us as well.

~Wendy Wright

 

Something assures me that God is being intensely creative with our family too. 

 Calling us to look deeply and love well.  

 

With our faith plunging deep, teaching us to be sustained even in our weakness.

 

Showing us what fragility looks like and how much its presence changes us.

 

What journeying together really requires.  

Each learning to hold the hand of another, giving up the desire to follow our own plans.

 

Pushing us to keep walking on an ever unknown, ever winding path. 

 Gradually  releasing the pull of the comfortable life.  

More awake, magnifying the power of a single moment 



and calling us to linger within it together.

Seeing the beauty of His plan unfolded, and how to be intentional with the gifts given us.

 

Feeling the cold and hard, but also released by the beauty emerging from it.

Hard things have their many hidden rewards.  

So, we release our family again and again,



drinking deeply from this wild and precious life. 

The Invitation

There just isn't enough poetry in the world.  Or enough real conversation for that matter.  So often I ache to go deeper, and then deeper still.  The sad part?  I rarely do.  I ran across this today, and it hit me right where my heart is lately...

The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me

what you do for a living.

I want to know

what you ache for

and if you dare to dream

of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me

if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me

who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me

where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know

what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

This is reprinted with permission from Adventures in Babywearing.