Roots

I found myself in a surprise situation the other day, and it made me glad I had taken the time to at least powder my nose before leaving the house. My daughter has a friend who is home from college now, and who also found out a few weeks ago that her mother has a very aggressive form of breast cancer. So we brought her mom chocolate, as any well meaning person would do, and we heard her story while watching her fold newly purchased "lounging around the house not feeling well" pajamas.  A few days later she called....a neighbor had a friend who has a ministry praying for the sick, could they come and pray for her, and did I want to come too?

So now the powdered nose part.  I was expecting a neighbor, her friend, and my new friend, but what I found when I walked in the house was a kitchen full of women chatting away,  holding iced tea and waiting for me to get there so they could start...all ten of us! A prayer party, a virtual melting pot of church affiliations from the culdesac; one's church had made a prayer quilt, another brought the minister, all were ready to bring meals, and here they were to pray.  Dining room chairs completed a circle in the living room and we settled in for the extra-ordinary event. Stories of faith shared, hands held, tears fell, and even for me the widow minister knelt down on her seventy-four year old knees and bowed her head in faith.

I was in the presence of virtual California coast redwood tree roots.  They grow to 350 feet in height, wrap your mind around that for a moment, take the high school football field and stack one and a half of them on their edge and on top of each other...the tree. You would need a parachute to jump down, and you can forget bird watching.  How deep do you think the roots would need to go in order to keep these giants upright through rain, wind, fire and earthquakes, for an average of 500-700 years but sometimes even 2,000? The shocking answer is 6-12 feet. Shocking I know. It is like the little pink eraser anchoring the long, yellow shaft of a pencil!

The power of these roots isn't magical, its relational. What they do is interlock with one another under the ground and hold on for dear life. Their relatively thin roots travel shallow but 50-80 feet sideways to their close growing neighbors, twisting, wrapping, interlocking, and creating a rock solid base on which they all stand. I guess that must mean that they depend on each other for life; one growing alone would be like the ones you see laying on their sides with roots in the air.

A stack of cards two inches high, phone calls, bear hugs, chicken casserole and salad, vases and baskets of flowers, prayer bracelets, conversations on the porch, tears...they all hold us up.  The trees know it without trying. I think we forget sometimes how much we need each other and how much just expressing our thoughts towards one another keeps the forest standing upright.

As I strive to abide more fully in God I am making the effort to see Him more clearly in the people around me.  An ancient church father taught his monks to "examen" their day in the evening to reflect on all of the ways God's grace was present in people and places, but might have been missed.  Here is my "examen" list" for the past few days:

1) painted on the side of a delivery truck with an arrow pointing to the driver. "Our company's most valuable resource"...I felt the heart of God in that!

2) phone call "When can we get together and pray for you again before chemo?"

3) my dad, "How are you doing Molly we've been praying for you"

4) kindness of my doctor at the surgery follow up visit

5) extra long hug in the kitchen from my husband

6) an arm around my shoulder and "I'm so glad you aren't going to die mom"

7) a card signed by the Poway wrestling team with all their thoughts and prayers for me

8) a lonely yet faithful widow and daughter of the Most High, on her knees and holding my hand as she prays for me

9) old friends offering their beloved mountain cabin retreat to Ben and I for a get away any time

10) opportunities that keep coming my way to reach out and be an intertwining root to others who are going through trials and tribulations right now too

11) seeing prayers for my kids answered in front of my eyes, and some of these prayers have been waiting for years and years to be answered

12) a happy chance (serendipity) meeting with a friend at Nordstrom Rack who hugged me and said she has been praying for me daily...daily!

I did start to feel discouraged about some things the last few days, but I took the time to stop and talk to the Lord about it, and felt reminded to examine my life to see His love for me in ways that I don't always take the time to consider well enough. Now if you could see me today, you would see a tree standing straight and tall, weathering a storm with the strength of intertwining roots, God's hands and feet and words holding me tightly in place and upright.