Growing Roots
When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs.
 He didn't look like any doctor I'd ever known.
 He never yelled at us for playing in his yard.
 I remember him as someone
 who was a lot nicer than circumstances warranted.
When Dr. Gibbs wasn't saving lives, he was planting trees.
His house sat on ten acres,
and his life's goal was to make it a forest.
The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant husbandr
He came from the "No pain, no gain" school of horticulture.
He never watered his new trees,
which flew in the face of conventional wisdom.
Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them,
and that if you water them,
each successive tree generation will grow weaker and weaker.
So you have to make things rough for them
and weed out the weenie trees early on.
He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots,
 and how trees that weren't watered had to grow deep roots in search of
I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.
I planted a couple of trees a few years back.
Carried water to them for a solid summer.
 Sprayed them. Prayed over them.
The whole nine yards.
Two years of coddling has resulted in trees
that expect to be waited on hand and foot.
 Whenever a cold wind blows in,
they tremble and chatter their branches. Sissy trees.
Funny things about those trees of Dr. Gibbs'.
 Adversity and deprivation seemed to benefit them
in ways comfort and ease never could.
Every night before I go to bed,
 I check on my two sons.
I stand over them and watch their little bodies,
 the rising and falling of life within.
I often pray for them.
Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy.
But lately I've been thinking that it's time to change my prayer.
This change has to do with the inevitability of cold winds
that hit us at the core.
I know my children are going to encounter hardship,
 and I'm praying they won't be naive.
There's always a cold wind blowing somewhere.
So I'm changing my prayer.
Because life is tough, whether we want it to be or not.
Too many times we pray for ease,
but that's a prayer seldom met.
What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal,
so when the rains fall and the winds blow,
we won't be swept asunder.