Friday, February 11, 2011

Trying Too Hard


Yesterday I found myself in Walmart staring hungrily at the dusty pinks and reds of these flowers. Plastic flowers. Really though, any flowers. Anything with color, vitality and life to share. And it made me realize that those synthetic blooms are just a symptom of that old feeling of trying far too hard just to get by.

I look at those plastic flowers and I remember that there is fertile ground in my garden, beneath all that snow. And I remember that there are still fertile words in my heart and in my hands, but they are somehow frozen beneath something that numbs up my soul every February. I had to resist the urge to throw my face into those flowers yesterday, hoping for just a whiff of spring. Mostly though, I held myself back because I knew I would only be filled with disappointment and shame for trying.

And so I do what I always do to make myself feel real – and not plastic like those blooms – I count my blessings. {that's what Christians do when they are sad. we even know a goofy song about it.} Then it happens, just like it always does.

The mystery of those flowers, the mystery of February and of frozen words, frozen hands and frozen hearts is revealed – I don't have to try quite so hard because there is this quiet knowledge that I can do all things because someone bigger than me lives inside me.

I don't understand it. But I will live just for today, trying to. And when the snow melts everything will make sense again. And I won't have to try so hard anymore.

1 comment:

Marie said...

So beautiful and vulnerable, Tanya.