A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. Isaiah 11:1

Internet email on relationships: Beautiful and profound.

Some of my midlife suffering came from tensions within my marriage. While (my husband) Sandy and I were away for a weekend at a lakeside cabin, the internal wrestling became intense. Growth versus fallowness. Old wounds versus new healing. Freedom versus commitment. Choosing versus settling for. Leveling versus starting over. Hope versus despair. They were all there.

Early one morning we took a walk, moving through the shadows and listening to the crunch of pine cones beneath our shoes. The path wound uphill, getting steeper. I couldn't help but think how appropriate that was. Marriage has its own steep hills.

On the pinnacle of the hill, I paused to catch my breath. Sandy wandered ahead, "Look!" he called. Standing twenty yards ahead he was pointing to a scarred tree stump. "Come closer." I came closer. And there, growing in the center of the stump, was the green shoot of a new oak tree.

I don't know how long we stood side by side gazing at the new tree "hatching" from the old stump. All I know is that it seemed to me God was speaking eloquently once again about rebirth . . . a simple message about how life comes out of death and healing comes out of scars and wounds. The message said that rebuilding can happen after leveling. It said that hope is bigger than despair.

I looked at Sandy. Could we heal the wounds?

As we continued on the trail in the woods, I reached a "combustion point." I felt a firming inside me of the truth, as if the knowing had begun to congeal in my soul. And not just the knowing but the desire to unfold it, the strength to follow it. A little act of creation happened right then. A little birth. An "eastering."

I slipped my hand into Sandy's. "I love you," I whispered. It was the first time in so long that I had said the words. I felt his fingers tighten around mine. "I know. I love you too," he said.


By: Sue Monk Kidd