I’m sorry for not posting the past few days. I’m in New Hampshire dealing with something that has been particularly difficult emotionally. I was fortunate in that my best friend was with me.

My friend and I are much closer than friends tend to get – we are as close to sisters as two genetically unrelated women can be. What we share is a similar upbringing, and an understanding of each other’s pain, and what growing up in a toxic religious environment can do to somebody – how it can have lifelong consequences. We both suffer from chronic illness including asthma and allergies and autoimmune issues, and we both share a deep love of art and music. We are both divorced with two children; I have two daughters, she has two sons. Her mom worked for two of the same companies that I worked for – one of them in the same building and same floor, albeit quite a few years prior to me. The thing is that we have a great deal in common, and when we talk, we connect on a level that I can’t reach with anybody else, and never have.

Over the years, I’ve been accepted as part of the family, and where my own family rejected me, it is my friend’s family that embraces me. I’m not sure I would have survived the difficulties of the past few years without her. This is the sort of friendship we share, and today’s post was inspired by a conversation we had.

In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and also in the gospel of Thomas, you will be able to find the parable of the sower, or the parable of the soils as it is called by some. It is a story of a farmer who instead of sowing seeds with care, cast them about indiscriminately, giving no care as to whether they landed on good soil, poor soil, among thorns, or among stones.

Have you ever wondered on hearing that parable what sort of soil or seed you might be? (Depending on how it was explained to you.) Or perhaps it was the parable of the ten bridesmaids, and you wondered whether you might be a wise one who would bring enough oil to last until the bridegroom arrived.

The question in either case comes down to one of sufficiency – do we believe in ourselves enough to say unequivocally that we are the fertile ground or the good seed, or that we are the wise bridesmaids with sufficient oil for our lamps. We can say that we are wise, sufficient, loving, and caring, and we know this because of the company we keep, because of those who choose to love us, and who permit us to share our love with them. To deny ourselves is to deny those who love us. To deny ourselves is to call everyone who places faith in us liars.

So what of this beautiful flower growing from a brick and mortar wall?

My friend, my sister, and I saw this and realized that some seeds care not where they are planted. Such as these are my friend and I, who by all odds probably shouldn’t have made it to where we are. We have both survived much, and fate seems to have had a reason for bringing us together. I know that she brought healing to me, and I’ve seen moments of that in her as well. This flower, growing where nature really didn’t intend for flowers to grow, represents both of us perfectly. Sower? Soil? Who really cares. Life threw us both some really unique curve balls, and we did the unexpected with them. It’s as if a pitcher throws his best and the ball just disappears. Nobody got to hear a familiar report of bat striking ball, nobody saw it land in the catcher’s mitt, nor did it go past him; that ball just disappeared somewhere between the pitchers mound and the catcher. Someone had a plan for that ball. But just maybe, the ball, like my sister and I, like that flower in the wall, had plans of it’s own design. Our respective churches had plans for us, they, too, are gone. But we are here together, living our own lives as best we can, making art, making music, writing, and trying to make this world a little bit better for the people we interact with.