palm trees

I don't know what I'd do without you, my friends. Even as I write this, your faces appear in my mind, and I am filled with love for you.
One of you sent me these words the other day... an answer to a rhetorical question. Palm trees. Every year along the coasts, the weather changes. Huge storms and hurricanes hammer the beaches, destroying nearly everything in their paths. When the storm dies and the tide goes back out, there is little left untouched by the natural disaster. But the palm trees remain standing. Why is this? Because they were designed to bend with the wind. Palm trees will bend almost all the way to the ground as the storms hammer upon the coasts (and the houses, the cars, the very appearance of the beach). When the storm is gone (for, eventually all storms come to an end) the palm trees spring back up to life. And they are stronger than ever.
Lately, the phrase 'tried by fire' has stuck in my mind. (It is, in fact, inspiration for one of my next tattoos.) I constantly try to remind myself that our Father will not give us more than we can handle--that sometimes the fires are there to clear us of unwanted, dangerous debris that we forgot to clean out ourselves. As does a storm. A trial--a trial we will emerge from, stronger than before. We were created to withstand, to endure.
And so I have been begging my Father to transform me. Make me into a new creation that is stronger than who I am now; "flexible", in the way that I might bend with the wind (remembering, all the while, that perhaps the Lord is in these winds... I am being driven, bending to the ground by the holy breath of God).
And so my words often sound like this... "God, come close. Come quickly! Open your ears--it's my voice you're hearing! Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising; my raised hands as evening prayers. (Psalm 141:1-2)"
Days like today, when I am weepy and nervous and tired, when I feel as though the fire may have gotten too hot, or the wind blown too hard, or perhaps... the cocoon is wrapped too tightly... I cling to the hope that I was created this way. Like a palm tree. To bend, but not to break. To be refined like silver, but not burned to ashes. And that when this cocoon breaks away-- when the pressure and heat of this metamorphisis has happened-- I will be more than I was before.
So... thank you for being who you are. You, who will come home soon from from the adventure of your life, cling to this hope. You, who will be coming home shortly to what most would call "normal life" (we know better, that there is nothing normal about it)... You, fabulous you, who never really quite knows what to say (but that is perfect) and has been released from some of the ties that bind.
I don't know what I'd do without you.