A Seed Emerging Fragile (Click here)
I confess – I enjoy a front row seat to how these boys communicate to each other in this house of mine. Their tag-team humor, their eye-popping honesty to each other – sometimes it un-nerves me. Other times it humors me beyond measure. At times, I just want to pack up my chair and exit. Every now and then, it just wows me.
My soldier-son, he went to visit my people in Louisville. He admired the girls there. Thought he might find himself a Louisville girl.
“That’s what your dad did,” I quipped. He decided maybe he really shouldn’t find himself a Louisville girl. Those are the one-on-one, light-hearted conversations.
Then there’s the two on one talking. A brother talking about the challenges of working at a camp, a worker spitting on the floor he’s mopping, wondering if leadership realizes all the trees he’s cut down, the grounds he’s mowed and how this son is frustrated with hypocrisy but wanting to live faith.
Moments like those are sometimes the “wind-whipping- moments, when either because of our choices or others choices, we are “tromped, hoof pressed, storm weathered pressed leaf pressed, water pressed, gravity pressed,into soil blackness”
“Get used to it,” said the soldier son. “That’s life.” He paused and a few seconds later added, “Pray about it.”
We looked at him, not sure how serious he was taking this conversation. This son who rolled his eyes every time I said, “Pray about it.” This son who wasn’t sure how to handle the Prayer for a Solder son I sent him last September.
The conversation continued. In the midst of life’s challenges, living faith came in the form of a crying camper whose walking stick was broken by a bullying camper and how this joyful son struggling with challenges that threatened to distract him from what he considered his real mission – showing God’s love to these campers – searched for another stick from the stick pile, crafted it into something awesome and gifted it to the camper or how he carried a camper with a twisted ankle to the nurse and then carried him back to the cabin.
“They say they want to be like me,” he said about these campers.
That is where “the core of itself remembers light and flimsy roots push upward emerging fragile. . . reaching ever light upward.”
That’s life, I thought, the good fruit of life, that is. Where walking faith rises above the challenges like cranberries in the water in the harvest.
Soldier Son says from the kitchen, “Pray about it.”
And we both look at him, “Are you mocking us?”
And he repeats, “Pray about it. I’m serious.”
And I am just overwhelmed at both of them, these seeds emerging fragile, growing faith, using that faith, no matter how imperfectly, despite real or imagined challenges, to live hope in an imperfect world.
They both seemed so fragile to me this weekend, these young men 6 ft 3 and 6 ft 5. God was reminding me that no matter how fragile they seem in the challenges they face. No matter how they are just young men, seedlings and saplings on so many levels, God’s word, that faith seed within them, is more mighty, more strong, more than enough to grow them out of these fragile times until they are to the world what an oak tree is to an acorn –
because God is just that big, that powerful, that faithful to us.
Oh, Maryleigh, this is beautiful. Really. So encouraging to those of us trying to encourage younger children to trust in the Lord. Thank you.
What a great blessing it must have been for you to see such goodness and faith exemplified in your sons…wow! Thanks for giving us a peek π Blessings to you, Maryleigh π
smiles…def encouraging and i dont think he was mocking you in the end….it is pretty cool to see the seeds craching open and new life, however large or small begin to grow…
Sweet post. Thankful that your son is serving. Heroic.
How neat! What a blessing to have your sons step up to the godly plate. Made my heart rejoice… and, in a heavy sigh, desire to hear similar from my kids and grandkids. You gave me hope.
Wonderful. How lovely of you to share with other parents the encouragement you received in this moment.
I still remember the first time my son came to me and said, “I think God wants me to tell you something” and proceeded to share what was on his heart. It was spot on. It was a wonderful moment of realizing seeds sown do bloom. Wonderful, wonderful post. Been missing them!!
This was def an encouragement for me today. Sometimes you wonder if all you say and do is really getting through, this gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, it is.
this makes me ache in a good way. for the way they stretch tall and stay so small at the same time. love you friend.
Such joy!!!!! Such fruit!!!! I’m thrilled for you! Thank you for linking up!!!!