Fragil Stems

Today after church a family invited me over for lunch and I got to sit outside because the weather is back up to fifty. I helped the woman work in the garden and I made faces at the cats who wanted to play with me even though I kept explaining to them that I am allergic and can't pet their soft-looking fur.

I've never really experienced spring, and I'd say that if this lack of sun and miserable half-hearted rain is Spring I could certainly do without it.  Still, watching those little plants try to poke through the surface was beautiful and exciting. There's something so freeing about working so close to the dirt.

Today was a really good day, refreshing, peaceful. I got to get off campus and forget about packing and schoolwork and finals and everything else in my life. It's been hard watching the people around me get so stressed. So many of my friends are facing huge choices and asking me for advice I can't give, and others just seem to be in various stages of falling apart. I think that's one thing I've learned from this first year of college. We're all falling apart, it's just a matter of how much and how noticeable.

Thank goodness for that One who can glue us back together, or just work on us through winter to make us completely new again come Spring. I just have to take a deep breath and believe that I can be some kind of beautiful flower.

Fragile Stems

We are fragile stems-
leftover from winter-

trying to grow. 

The wind blows,
rain forces us to bend,
the whole world
wants us to
fail.

One broken blade of grass
can't help another stand,
and yet I curve
toward you,
desperate to help
though
I can only watch you break.

We teeter here
in the blowing wind,
the lingering mud,
hoping
that we too
can be made new.