Growing Up in the Sticks

We have lots of trees on the farm and just about every day, limbs--some big, some small--fall into the yard and driveway.  Eventually, we pick them up and burn them, but for now, they are in a big pile that used to be a flowerbed.  

As I was walking by the pile last night, I noticed this pretty pink zinnia standing tall in the midst of it. It was the only one.  I don't know if zinnias used to live in this bed before all the random sticks or if the seed blew into the bed from somewhere else, but it got me to thinking...

Pinky (as she will now be referred to--can't beat my originality) is on her own.  There are no other flowers to keep her company.  The only thing around her are weeds and sticks and some unwanted grass.  Yet she grows anyway.  She finds the nutrients she needs and soaks them in. She doesn't depend on someone else to get it for her--she knows she is responsible for her own health.

The sticks and weeds may actually help her.  They create a cover over her roots, helping to trap water into her soil so she doesn't go thirsty.  Sometimes the things that look like a big ol mess around us actually serve to protect and help us.  

She has a choice every day whether to wither or whether to reach for the sky.  As sticks get thrown in the pile, they aren't necessarily avoiding her, so she has to make her way around things she didn't plan for.  Sometimes our circumstances seem bleak and when we think we finally have a handle on it, someone dumps another pile of sticks or flings a lone one at us that hits us square in the face.  We can choose whether to let that stop us.  We have the option to stretch a bit further or hunch back down and hide.

I think Granny is a lot like Pinky.  She has worked hard her whole life.  She has lost 2 husbands, most of her friends and her parents.  She's lived alone for a lot of her life.  Yet, she has chosen to continue growing--even at the ripe age of 102.  Part of that spunky-ness has made her scrappy and while that makes her hard to handle some days, it's also what has kept her alive so long.

I don't know about you, but I hope I'm like Granny and Pinky.