Hope Springs

I was hiking in the southeast in the early spring. And just to clarify, early spring can happen in February in that part of the United States. As I was hiking along the path, I saw a downed tree. It wasn’t uncommon to see downed trees that time of year, but something was different about this one. I noticed that, despite having fallen and being dead, a fresh limb had sprouted from the the tree. Young and thin with buds showing at the tips and waiting for the season’s cue to open and reveal renewed life. 

The symbolism was not lost on me in that moment. 

How often do we feel like giving up when you’ve fallen? How many times do you believe that nothing can come from your feelings of being broken? Out of your anguish? Out of your missteps? Out of your perceived defeat? You shake our fist and swear at the sky that you’ll never be whole again and that your chances of joy and fulfillment are gone. 

I have been the fallen tree. I, too, have felt less-than, broken, defeated, unloveable. I have shaken my fist and sworn at the sky. And in those moments when it was dark, when it felt like the walls had fallen in on me, and I could never experience joy again, some thing begin to happen. A single sprout of hope of a new chance. At a life renewed and reimagined. 

It seems to me that the new life that I saw on the fallen tree wasn’t relying on itself. It was being given nourishment from somewhere. I’d like to think that the downed tree was giving the last little bit of itself to help this young sapling grow. That somewhere within, there was enough hope that life could continue. 

Our reserve tank of hope runs deeper than we think. Our power to regenerate with the slightest sliver of hope is more power than we imagine.