My son passed away suddenly in November of 2020, just days after his twenty eighth birthday. From a series of poor choices and a bad case of mistaken identity. I don’t say this lightly, nor do I desire to be offensive. However, I refuse to sweeten the facts to make it easier for us all. Life is beautiful and so very precious. I don’t want to cheapen it. Our choices have consequences and seeds are sown with our actions. Redemption is messy and I believe we need to have hard conversations. But one of the best descriptions I have been able to find during this season of grieving is dryness.
I would drive along this state, feeling like the terrain on which, my eyes scanned. Barren, dry, crumbly and oh how I longed for a Well Spring. Those New Spring rains. I knew that rain equals growth and without water, things die. I ached in sadness, in the what if's and in the regret. In soils of toxicity, damaging the roots. My roots. Normal, natural – yes, but not fruitful for my mind or my heart. Barren and dry. Not wanting to stand again and being so angry for the place I found myself.
A few weeks prior to the Feast of Trumpets, I was sitting with my cow Tippy Margaret. She is a gift from God. A gift I tried to refuse. A gift He knew I needed. For her personality and for mine. I was there, sitting with her in a place called Betty Gulch, or what the good old boys call “the high and dry.” Knowing it had been some time since I felt like my prayers had feeling, depth if you will - when I spoke them. In a place, where it had been some time since my Bible readings hit my heart and shook my soul. Sometime since I fed what needed feeding, as I was slowly growing the hardening of a vessel. Looking back now, the most of what I remember there, was the clinging grip I had on my God. On my Redeemer. That literal I know not what the next moment will feel like, and I definitely didn’t want to feel anything. I remember how that place concerned me and wondering if I was gonna make it through this one. It was only by the Grace of God.
I remember sharing this with my husband, just sobbing trying to find the best description of what I truly felt like inside. I turned my head and stated firmly that I feel like THAT! That sagebrush, as I pointed. Yes, just plain old sagebrush. Nothing fruitful, I didn’t like it and I didn't want to be here. In this place of hard and of hurt. I didn't desire the dry, but I knew nothing on how to fix it. I didn’t know how to fight it.
I asked God at least a hundred times to help me, to bring the rain... for a new Well Spring. It felt as if He was silent to me. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months and then one night between the cow chewing alfalfa and miles of sagebrush, Abba gave me a gift. Something ignited. Sagebrush.
Sagebrush may not be a gift at first look, but did you know the evergreen shrub is able to thrive in extremely diverse environments, with its double root system and unique branches and leaves. The first root system lies just beneath the shallow soil. Allowing the plant to soak up sudden rainfall and meltwater before it evaporates. The second root system, the longer and tougher roots push deep into the earth, searching for underground water sources. The holding on roots.
Sagebrush has both vegetative and reproductive branches, leafy with small yellow blossoms... that bloom in late summer and early fall. When most plants are preparing for winter, the sagebrush is just getting started. After the seeds ripen, the reproductive branching dies – but remains on the main shrub for another year.
Sagebrush is a survivor, some have been recorded to be a hundred years old. It tends to thrive in areas damaged by overgrazing and over trodden. The leaves have a distinct aroma, and were used by tribal people for a myriad of reasons. Sagebrush. Something I never knew so much about, both academically and now, in the form of God answering my dried heart. In the way He knew I would hear. In the way He knew I would feel. Clouds and Rain began to form.
The day before we honored Yom Teruah, we were out in the high and dry again. Listening to the cow chew her alfalfa. I was resting on a bucket, leaning against the gate, when I looked over and observed the most beautiful yellowed up sagebrush I have ever seen. Partly, I am sure, was due to the new angle from which I was viewing the world. Another gift, in the form of a promise.
There will be dry and trying hurts, there will be times of barren and lack fruit luster. Seasons of scarce new shoots and drought. These are seasons and not permanent, even those at times it will feel like the season will never end. Can I tell you that I am now singing in the spring rain? No. Not a full on twirl. But, I am not dry inside… God has answered, and He is faithful.
I have read these verses so many times, Isaiah 44:1 - 4, even now tears come. I used to think willows were so far away from being like sagebrush. Now not so much, anymore. Do I think these revelations came around Holy days by accident, absolutely not. I know the Almighty divinely disclosed to my heart something I needed, something I asked for… in order to prepare me for the next season.
This is the time to prepare for rain, the early and latter rains.
