Firmly rooted

We only have three real plants in the house.  I love the greenery, and I love the "life" that plants and animals bring, so I try to surround myself with them, but G gets all surly and swears up and down they attract bugs (the plants, he says - not the animals!).  I have yet to see one of these bugs, but about once a week, G makes a dramatic swiping motion with his arm and glares into the air, his eyes darting to and fro.  Then he looks at me pointedly, like "Did you see that enormous bug?"  No, I didn't because it's not there.

Other than these three live plants, all the other plants in the house are gloriously fake and I dust them regularly.  I'm not too proud to admit it, people. 

Every morning before work I spend about an hour zoning out at the dining room table, and this ivy plant is part of my view, along with one of the few windows in our house that ever gets direct sunlight. 

The growth of the plant ebbs and flows.  I've had it for probably five years and about once a year, huge portions of it turn brown and I whack them off, then the whole plant comes to life again.  I think G pees in it when I'm not home, but this little guy just won't die.  Recently, it has become "rooted" to the wall, and has slowly but surely started to creep up the side of the window, as you can see.

I noticed it happen, but left it alone.  After a few days of tentative creeping, it started to gain traction, growing bigger, greener leaves.  I went over to try to remove it from the wall gently, but it is stuck.  And for some reason, I just don't want to rip it off.  There's something about reading through the Psalms, and thinking about God, and watching that ivy climb the wall.  I'm not ready to end its ascent just yet.

There's still the person who hates me.  I see this person every day and I can say honestly that their hatred actually fuels them.  There was a season of my life when this bothered me, got under my skin, caused me to pray, to dig deep, to explore things.  And now I can say, confidently, truly, that I am healed.  God has allowed me to go through some...trials...and I am now able to stand up under a lot of strongly-felt (although deeply misguided and almost wholy misdirected) hatred. 

Someone very important to me has prayed over me several times that I would be firmly rooted and established in God's love.  That's what this little ivy brings to mind daily, and it's one of the main reasons I let it attach itself to my pretty kitchen wall.  I've watched it take root and it reminds me that this is the very process going on in my heart.  My enemy?  My enemy has bitterness winding and wrapping its way around everything in their life.  The bitterness has choked out the goodness and the...potential...that used to be there.  It has actually choked out some life.  I have watched it completely destroy their power. 

Hatred is a compelling motivator, but the bitterness is caustic and I see this person's countenance actually rusting.  I think through all the trouble that this person has caused me, all the petulence I have put up with, all the false and mean, vindictive accusations I have stood up against - I think I can say that I have never hated this person.  And I think the only reason I can say that is because God has given me eyes to see the ruin and destruction that will happen in a life that surrenders to evil.  It takes a great, great amount of faith and perseverance not to give in to hatred, not to fight back, to bite your tongue when you want to lash out, and to simply stand up around this utter folly.  The faith is not mine - it is a gift.  But it still takes a surprising amount of it.

God has healed me.  He has just as subtlely and surely taken root in my heart and started to wind love and security around my inner self.  The problems have not gone away.  This hatred is as real and as present as it has ever been.  But something is different.  Me.

I have been given a picture of what could have happened - and happened easily, almost seamlessly - in my own life.  But, day after day, week after week, year after year, I prayed that I would rather be hurt than bitter.  I would rather be accused than bitter.  I would rather be hated and not deserve it than to give in to the hatred crouched at my own door and become just as bad and wrong and utterly consumed as my enemy.  I just don't want to be that way.  I do not want to look at life through a bitter lens.  I just can't put my feelings any other way.

And guess what?  After all this time, I'm just fine!  It's not that I'm able to ignore their antics, or that I'm able to fight them off...it's that they don't affect me anymore.  It's that I'm able to be me, normal me - not defensive me - day after day. 

It's that a miracle has occured.  I'm telling you - a miracle.  Just as surely as the Israelites escaped Pharoah by crossing through the middle of a sea.  And so every morning I sip my coffee and stare at that plant.  And I'm gonna let it wind up that window for a long, long time.