Roots

Admittedly these two pics were taken yesterday, but they've been on my mind so I wanted to share...

When I was in my friend's backyard yesterday, I could not help but spot this little ground cover berry plant racing to find a place to root and keep himself alive, grow. Just look at him! He has one "feeler" crawling down the side of the stone wall and one taking off in the other direction looking for his next parking spot. How did he know there'd be a place, a small dirt encrusted little hole in the stone steps in which he could stop and set some roots? Sorry if I get so giddy about this stuff, but it truly amazes me at the audacity and sheer power for life to sustain itself--and the amazing beauty of it all!

Just seconds later I am snapping pictures of my two little (well not so little) ones just inches away at the same stone steps. I was struck with the thought that our children grow with that same energy. They are forever sending out "feelers" for places in which they feel safe to stop and send down roots. And like this little plant, they will find roots in the oddest, toughest, maybe dirt-less, places. I look at my two children and think about the haven, the hopefully rich garden, that they have had growing up. How fortunate they are to have been given some good soil to put down roots. But I also know that my parenting has not been perfect and I am sure, as we all do, when they are emotionally mature enough to work through it, they'll see that indeed there were places that they stopped to put roots down in odd places. 

And then I think about the children that have had the toughest lives possible, the ones that have carried crosses no child should carry. That they've indeed grown roots were we thought not possible. But they have, cause children do that. Because they long to find a place and they'll grow whether we are looking or caring or...not.

Makes me want to be a better mom. And it makes me want to be better at loving the ones that are not my own, that perhaps have no safe soil at home. Perhaps I (we) can do better at loving them and offering a safe place to put some roots down.