Skip to main content

Clinging


I have a number of flowering vines, deliberately planted, and innumerable wild ones populating the backyard and prayer trail beyond it. I am fascinated by their very determined twining and stretching, in spite of barriers, dry places, and competition for soil…


But there are two such vines that struck me this morning because of the disparity in their growth. 


One—a climbing hydrangea—has yet to live up to its name. It’s not the vine’s fault. I had just assumed it would climb up the wall, so I’ve given it nothing to cling to. One year later, it’s still more like a meager little bush, evidently stunted in its growth for lack of a trellis. 


The other one, on the other hand—a Mandevilla—has twined itself tightly onto the trellis I gave it, intricately and inseparably weaving through its sturdy iron structure over and over, back and forth. If ever there was an image of a living thing clinging to something, this is it. 


As we live and grow, we need something strong, steady, and solid to cling to, as well. If we were that stout and voluminous Mandevilla, but merely clinging to the nearest stick, we would eventually collapse on ourselves. We can aspire to reach for the sky, but if we have no solid anchor and framework, we will fall. Or else never rise at all, stunted…only a fraction of what we were meant to become. 


Some may shun this notion, dismissing God’s word as irrelevant or outdated in part or in whole. But there is a strength in them that I need to cling to. Not just lean against—cling to. It guides me in the right direction, fostering a flourishing and healthy soul. It anchors me in truth and consistency. It steadies me in the worst of storms. And 

hold me up when I cannot hold myself up. 


#BackyardDevo 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NEMESIS, TRAPS AND DIGRESSIONS, OH MY!

Let's begin at the beginning. You have challenges. You have issues. You have enemies. All of the above would be true for any of us -- from slacker to slave, from victim to hero -- but there is actually one very small but highly distinguishing characteristic: perspective. Yes, the thing that makes mountains out of molehills--and vice versa--is undoubtedly the key to success or failure, and the common thread through the story of every hero. Something interesting about perspective: it can be found, lost, and regained -- although sometimes elusive, it's always attainable.  Through the next week, we will explore the various things responsible for our lost perspective, and talk about how to get it back. I was about to say that there are three things that generally rob us of our proper perspective, but that would imply that it can be taken from us, by force. The fact is, unfortunately, we sometimes "lose" our perspective as easily as we misplace our keys, cell phone, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Friday Frenzy

How the weeks fly by! It's Friday, already, and here we are, dizzied by the sight of our to-do lists...so many boxes, still unchecked! Where do you begin? It seems that your desk needs tidying up, your closet needs cleaning, or perhaps the fridge needs to be cleaned out. Rather than face the mountain of tasks we should be doing, we plunge into a frenzy of something I call " productive procrastination. " If it requires explanation, perhaps it's not one of your unfortunate inclinations, as it is mine. For clarification, however, allow me to define the phrase: exerting your efforts in otherwise non-urgent, comparatively mindless tasks, rather than the more urgent ones requiring your full attention. It's something we all do, once in a awhile--something I've done from an early age. The phenomenon (as I choose to categorize it, since it seems to take on an energy and behavior all its own) presents itself whenever feel unequal to the priority tasks at hand. For w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting Smarter

How can you be specific about your goals when they are just a bunch of vague, foggy, wishes, hopes and dreams? It's time to take that pie-in-the-sky endeavor down from its celestial pedestal and see if it tastes as good as it looks from afar. (Forgive me for bringing up desserts so early in your diet-shackled day)...Is it really, truly unachievable, or that your perception because you don't currently have the means or mechanisms to reach it? If there is a yellow-brick road to your dream, I promise you that underneath lies a foundation of solid research. It's the best preparation for turning those dreams into reality. Would we have ever reached the moon, or even this continent, without it? As brilliant and passionate as the explorers of Earth and space were, without their tedious hours buried in books at a drafting table, we would probably all still be back in the old world, and certainly never beyond it, thinking the Earth was flat and all of space was unattainable.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more