I am here, tucked a little out of the way, in the beautiful garden, surrounded by the luscious peonies that are slowly opening out of their buds that look like marshmallows.
I know beauty when I see it. I tower over the irises that are bluey purple and so regal in their beauty! And I oversee the buckeye tree that you often stand by and look at its prickly buds that eventually grow and then expel the shiny dark brown nuts inside.
You see me and walk by me every time you walk the garden path. I see you looking at me. I feel your heart towards me. I know that you are pretty proud of me because I actually hear you talking about me to people. About the "one willow who made it!" I am resilient.
Sometimes you come to me, eye me up, as you stop and gently clip my boughs because they brush over people’s faces as they walk by on the garden path. I don't scratch them or hurt people, but I am a little bit in the way, and need to be tended to once in a while.
But, I’m growing almost as quick as you cut my boughs and I smile because you gather up the clippings and take take them and put them into water to grow roots so that you can plant me in other places! That makes me chuckle because I always think that I am so ordinary - just an ordinary willow. Yep NOT even a pussy willow or a weeping willow, although if you come near me and just sit a while, you may see my tears from time to time.
Yes I think I am ordinary. I do not have blossoms that turn into fruit. I do not have prickly things that grow beautiful shiny nuts, I do not have leaves that turn a beautiful orange or red or yellow when autumn comes. But YOU see something in me. And I am seeing things about myself as well. I feel like I am coming more alive within myself!
YOU see my strength and the way that I grow whether the conditions are good or tough. I know I have heard you and your husband talk about how quickly I grow, and how sturdy I am and how I missed the accidental mowing that my other willow siblings succumbed to. (But I did not) Was that coincidental, or the Creator's purpsoe for me, ordinary little me!
There was a plan for me obviously, and here I am - taller than any of the other trees that you actually paid money for.. I am sturdier than all the rest.
I am growing in leaps and bounds.
I am vibrant and strong and green - having risen up from a small stick you placed into the mud.
Not sure what your expectations were of me, but I have a feeling I have exceeded them all! Yep, I have really surprised you.
Creator knew that my characteristics where more than what met the eye for people. He knew that even though people may think that I am seemingly non descript and very ordinary ~ Creator knows better.
Yep, I sway in the wind, I bring shade when people walk under me and if you stop to take a good look, you have noticed that my trunk is big and sturdy and my roots go down deep. I can take the heat that beats down on me, and the rain that cools me and runs off my leaves. Sure I lose a few bits and pieces of my leaves and branches if the storms get a bit violent, but I am still standing.
I can handle the endless dry spells of summer and then the freezing temperature of our endless winter only to come out of it strong, healthy, growing green and beautiful.
** Thank you to my friend, and spiritual director, Cathy J Hardy, who encouraged the women in our "cloister" group to do a "retelling of my story through the lens of nature". I experience the goodness of God through Creation.
I love that the created (you, me) can worship as we are surrounded by such beauty. So, I knew right away that I would use my favourite tree in the garden to help retell my story.
Written today <3
