Another beginning

On september 21st, 2013, when Anna and I arrived at the big Bungalow annexe in the Christian Medical college campus, Vellore fro my convalescence after surgery, we noticed that the plants in the garden were just pruned and they looked bare.

Since then, we have had few showers and  I keep watching the new shoots growing in all the plants. Those tender, small and freshly green leaves keep growing in size each day. Today they looked brilliant and elegant in the morning sun. 

These plants would go through this rhythm of pruning and sprouting every year. Each time the new shoots appear, it is announcement of new life. Pruning is the only way of giving a plant a chance to bring the new life resident in it. And yet, pruning causes some hurt and interruption to the life of the plant. 

I have often heard families talk to me about painful interruptions in their lives. One such story that I remember now is that of a family from Bangalore, who went through a difficult time following the severe illness of their five months old daughter. She was a bright, alert, playful and communicative child before the illness following which her parents noticed her to be almost opposite in her behaviour. During the next ninety minutes I spent with them, I too felt the intense turbulence, the family was going through. However, I was able to elicit in their daughter many visual, auditory, tactile, sensory and motor responses to different stimuli. The parents  felt encouraged by those responses and returned home ready to have a regular play based activity plan for her, every day on a few occasions. The family returned after three weeks, almost in amazement of the progress she made. She was responding to her name and making every effort to be playful. The family felt delighted at the new beginnings they observed in her. They were walking through the 'valley' experience with much hope and assurance. The veil of discouragement was being lifted.

Trauma, pain, and disappointments can freeze us into despair and helplessness. However there is life even with more meaning, beyond this. All of us need time, support and direction to travel through disturbing times in our lives. 

What God offers us is fullness of life and fruitfulness. Jesus of Nazareth said, 'I am the vine and you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit..' (John.15:5).

We are not immune to existential challenges and realities. They are common to us as well. But there is promise of grace, hope and strength. This can give us a different optic.

From the thick foliage that surrounds this guest house, I can hear the bird songs almost continually. But I cannot see any of the birds from this distance. God reminds us of his accompanying presence in our lives in different ways. May we grow in consciousness of this reality so that we celebrate the grace that leads us through our circumstances1

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)