release.

word of the day: release \ri-ˈlēs\ verb: to stop holding; noun: the state of being freed

So there was this leaf the other day.

That's the one. We passed it on a walk during our week of November summer. This was not a well-timed picture. I did not see it fall from the tree. It was a leaf suspended in mid-air. It was magic! Wingardium Leviosa!

(Okay, fine. It's caught on a spider web.)

I've been trying to think about it metaphorically since. I mean, you can't very well pass a levitating leaf and not look for the deep significance, right?

For awhile, I thought I was the leaf. I thought maybe it had to do with trust or perseverance or something, and then today it dawned on me: The leaf is dead. It's hanging on, but it has no hope of survival once it hits the ground. 

I think I am, in fact, the tree in this metaphor, and I realized it while looking out my window at the trees working to shed their leaves. Some trees take more time than others (our front tree has barely lost any leaves), but they all have the same goal: get rid of the dead, so that re-growth can happen in the seasons to come. 

The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go. 

So, I thought about the leaf and the spider web. And I thought about my life. And I wondered if there was something I was having trouble letting go of. And then, a little later, I had this conversation with Jake:

Jake: Why are you crying? (Ahem. A few inserts here: 1. His tone was one of compassion not annoyance 2. This is a moment in time that I'm sure anyone who has experienced the cries of multiple children for lengthy periods of time can understand. Just a good old fashioned breaking point.)

Me: I'm just frustrated. I kept looking forward to Norah's first birthday thinking everything with the girls would be easier by now. But this is even harder than what I thought was hard back then.¹

It was in this exact moment that I was reminded of something I had read approximately four hours earlier (yes, obviously Jen Hatmaker wrote it): 

Let go of what you expected and embrace what you have. The tug of war between expected and actual is what kills the spirit. God does his best work in reality. That gap between expected and actual is where grace takes over.²

 Maybe the magic leaf was coincidental, but (more likely) I needed a reminder to let go of my expectations and embrace what I have. Let God fill the gap with His grace and sufficiency (the constant in every season). I'm a much better mom and wife and general person when I let God do His work in my reality rather than existing in the gray space of what I expect the future to look like. 

So, I'm back to reality, and let me tell you, there is freedom in the letting go. Release and you'll find release.  

This is the stuff of hope. I'll rest my wand on that tonight.
_________________

1 Perspective is key. My "hard" is relative (and not really all that hard). Which makes me think of what I said HERE.

² I found these thoughts HERE on Hatmaker's blog admidst some notes she had taken at a MOPS conference. It was like a jewel hidden at the bottom of the page just for me to find.

root.

word of the day: root \ˈrüt, ˈru̇t\ the part of a plant that grows underground, gets water from the ground, and holds the plant in place; the cause or source of something

My parents had to cut a tree down in their yard a few weeks ago.  Said tree had been growing in front of the house since we moved in when I was five.  

Needless to say, I got all “The Giving Tree” about it and made Hannah do a photo shoot with me in front of the tree.  I’m a hopeless sentimental. 

In true Hannah fashion, she turned it into an adventure and made me climb the tree--marking the first and last time I climbed that tree in the 23 years I knew it.  

The tree is gone now. Except it’s not really gone.  A stump remains and an expanse of roots beneath the ground.  

So the word “root” took root in my brain.  

I felt unrealistically sad that this tree (the one I had never climbed) was being cut down.  But, then, as I watched them saw down the stump, I realized that the tree was still there.  You can’t very well tear 30-year-old roots out of the ground.  

And then I moved to Ohio (a phase in my life which will certainly be wrought with more words--some which are already ruminating nicely).  

As I drove away from Des Moines, last week, and in typical sentimental fashion, I listened to the song “Iowa” by Alli Rogers about 8 times in a row (The chorus starts with “Iowa, don’t know how to leave you; don’t know how to tell you goodbye” for crying out loud.  Which I was obviously doing.  And, you will certainly recognize this song if you lived in close proximity to me circa 2006).  

But I digress.  This is the phrase that stuck with me:

My soul is weathered but green

When a storm passes over the roots are unseen  

Until all is laid bare 

And the hope that I needed was already there

It hasn’t fully fleshed itself out in my brain yet, but here is what I know:

It’s hard to pull up roots.  

But hope doesn’t come from the storm that takes away the tree trunk.  It was always there and always will be there if you choose to plant your roots in the right place.  

And hope is what carries you through.