Never stops running. Unless he's climbing. Which keeps life fun and exhausting.
Trees feel magical to kids, and adults if you’re like me. I remember hours spent with my sisters and friends in our kid-made treehouse growing up. Now my children and their neighbor friends spend hours each week in our tree out back. They sit on branches and call them their rooms, assigning each new friend an area. They have raked out a little path leading to the tree and lined it with sticks. They hang like possums.
And it seems wherever we are, they gravitate towards trees and jump right up to climb. They like to go high. And for the most part, I let them.
Instead of being fearful they might fall, I’ve decided to just try and teach them to spot the healthy branches to climb.
Though not perfect, they’re getting a lot better at this. Instead of pausing to rest on a cracked limb with no leaves or a scrawny twig that won’t hold their weight, they look for the strong ones.
This is what I want for them in life too. I want to let them be brave and go high and take risks and work hard. They will have missteps and fall and experience pain, but I don’t want to keep them from that by making them stay on the lowest branches two feet off the ground, or not letting them climb at all. I want to teach them how to navigate the tough stuff.
And most importantly, I want them to rest on the strong and healthy One. No cheap imitations that crumble under weight.
I have felt God kindly invite me to persevere and climb higher in situations that I previously feared or felt were too difficult for me. He’s taught me how to navigate and how to stand in the midst of uncertainty. I’m learning how to cling to Him when things are shaky.
A few days ago I was out running the neighborhood with the babies in a stroller and an older son on his bike beside me. He was pushing himself to go faster and harder.
He said, “Look, Mom, I’m getting stronger!” Then, “Does it always hurt when you’re getting stronger, Mom?”
Yep, bud. Pretty much.
Pain is usually required to grow in strength. I've been feeling it and I know it's true.
An athlete doesn't build muscle by sitting around and wishing for muscle or reading about it. My kids won't build physical and emotional and spiritual endurance and fortitude if I forever keep them on the lowest branches, literally and metaphorically.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Those words are from the book of Isaiah and I love them. In my weakest moments, they’ve proven true. Strong branches in a tall tree.
