Pruning

 "This is where God meets me, in the hard stuff. And I am not defined by the hard thing, but by the ONE who walks me through it."

Last night we walked with Peanut down to the end of our street so she could see fireworks. For once, I'll be grateful to the random neighbors who shoot them off because crowds and parking nightmares aren't my thing.

As we stood there, next to this tree, I looked a Peanut's face as she saw her first firework.

A look of pure joy.

Her eyes got big, her mouth dropped off, and this smile spread ear to ear.

We stood there at this literal intersection of our street and the main drag and I realized that Sweet Daddy and I met the summer I turned 19.

The summer of 1994.

The year he graduated from high school and I had finished my first year of college. The year of the white bronco chase. The year we learned to say life is like a box of chocolates in a deep southern accent. The year we first met Ross and Rachel, Chandler and Monica, Joey and Phoebe.

We would be come best friends somewhere between 1994 and Christmas of 1997, the day we started dating.

As we walked back to the house, chasing Peanut with her glow stick necklaces swinging, I could see our home. I could see my two teenagers and a bonus child sprawled out on our sidewalk. I felt my hand securely in Sweet Daddy's.

I thought about this tree.

Every year my neighbor's children come and trim the trees down to the very base of the trunk.

It's always sad to me. They go from being full and colorful to bare, brown stumps in one afternoon.

For months they sit bare. No growth.

But then, they grow back. Fuller than before. Somehow prettier than before. They stand taller.

As I looked at my own beautiful mess yesterday I realized that life, for me, has also been this gardening circle.

Seasons of great pruning.

Seasons of hard, slow growth.

Seasons of beautiful blossoming.

Without the pruning, without the growth, there is no beautiful blossoming.

But I only want the blossoms.

That's normal right?

I stood there gazing at our own 19 year old, and remembering that when we were 19 is where this adventure began.

At 19, you can only see the pruning and the blossoms.

The hard times and the good times.

I've learned there is this great, green growing space between the hard and the good.

The growing.

It's in the growing we are forced to wrestle with the hard.

Mama Warriors, I pray that you learn to embrace the great, green growing season.

That you know that sometimes in order to live the FULL life He intends for us, that we need to be stripped back down to the bare basics.

So we find our footing.

So our roots grow stronger without so much to carry.

So that one day, we will blossom again.