Watered

Saturday, we explored.

We packed up some sandwiches and headed for a state park.

When we reached this spot, our destination, I cried.

There is something so alive about a waterfall and about so much green. It was almost painfully beautiful. It's been a long time since I've been surrounded by this kind of natural - the noise of the falls, the life of the forest, all of it.

There was a lot swirling inside me, behind those tears. I don't even understand all of it at the moment. There was this feeling of having needed to be in that spot. There was the raw, therapeutic beauty of the place. My soul has always craved newness, novelty. Taking this in? A wonderfully satisfying freshness.

As this transition east loomed before us months ago, I grieved the change. I still do. But in the midst of the grieving, I had a sense that a turn of seasons was upon me, on us. Of course, I understood that to be more in the figurative sense, but had no idea how literal it would be. After years of intense heat and drought in Texas, we're here in this lush place where the calendar says it's summer, but the thermometer says it is spring. Unreal. A pleasant shock to the system.

Walking up to that waterfall provided a living symbol of what I think I was sensing back then - just like my physical surroundings were edging on desert-like in central Texas, so was the state of my heart and spirit.

Much contributed to my arrival at that dry state - struggles and hard work and crises and everything.

There has been the breaking down that had to precede the building up of my own heart and self.

It seems that this move, this change of scenery, may just be a critical part of my movement out of the dry places.

I am reminded of the verses in the Word that refer to streams in the desert and profuse blooming in places that were once dry, feeling in myself that it is so very time to be watered and to unfold into this new season...

(that's my family in the background :-)

The desert and the parched land will be glad;

The wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus it will burst into bloom; 

It will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.

Strengthen the feeble hands,

Steady the knees that give way;

Say to those with fearful hearts,

"Be strong, do not fear. Your God will come..."

Then the lame will leap like a deer, 

And the mute tongue will shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

And streams in the desert.

The burning sand will become a pool,

The thirsty ground bubbling streams.

Isaiah 35:1-4, 6-7