Penpoints of Light

More Than Survival

The seed lands in gravel. No one notices. No one cares about the life stored within. It’s on gravel, after all, atop hard-baked ground next to a plain, metal building. Alone. Without worth.

Rain on the roof drips from the edge. Softens the seed. Life sprouts. What else can it do but try?

Sun warms. Below gravel, tender roots grasp soil of clay. Pitiful nourishment.

Cool mornings.

Blistering mid-days.

Dark nights.

A tinge of green uncurls into an environment it did not choose.

Rain. Sun. Rain. Sun. Rain.

Leaves uncurl. A blossom forms.

Sun…sun.

More Sun.

Exhausting.

Unending.

Abuse.

A few green leaves. Perhaps a flower will unfold, but drought forbids fruit.  

A woman seeks relief from the abusive heat. Reading as she walks, she glances aside, noticing what the seed has tried to produce.  Her thoughts, otherwise wrapped in an epic story of human survival, pause amazed at how beauty arises from harshness. The plant has somehow survived. With a flower like that, it has more than survived.

The woman continues her reading. It is one survivor’s story among many.

A seed.

A root.

A leaf.

A blossom.

The stories are coming to life, producing fruit. She is writing one herself.

A child is born. What else can it do but try?

Yet, who wants to merely survive? Who wants to be known only for their exhausting, constant struggle for identity and life? People commend what is survived. But when one is drowning and struggling for air, who among us would want to only be told we’re strong?

Action laced with words of love and care are better than pats on the back for endurance.

And what of the struggle? Will it ever produce? If only a leaf or, by chance, a bloom forms, will that be enough?

Chances are high any person we meet has experienced life-altering abuse or trauma. They may be in the root stage, the leaf, or perhaps the blossom. We can be Love’s hands and voice and action for intervention. We can provide the water of refreshment and the warmth of truth and light.

Let’s be kind.

Think before we judge or speak.

Be aware of pain.

Follow our hearts.

Seek to understand.

Take root.

Blossom.

Produce.

And, if you’re still a dry seed, there is life inside and it is enough.

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him ALSO that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones…I will heal him; I will lead him also and restore comforts unto him.”

Isaiah 47: 15 & 18

“And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.”

Isaiah 58:10

Here’s a link to the epic story mentioned above. I am acquainted with the writer and his wife. The story, while long and at times unbelievable, is true and is another example of how God navigates through the network of evil to protect and provide and to “restore comforts.”

https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/33rd-degree-married-lewis-miles/1139714716?ean=2940162521556