Growth in the hard-pressed places
A few weeks ago, I had some alone time to work on my book at a local coffee shop on the island. After that, I decided to take my camera and go on a photography walk. It’s something I haven’t had the chance to do in a long time but it was enjoyable and the morning weather was perfect.
Along the west end of the island, the seawall still runs along the water up until a certain point. The beach part ends but there are still places where you can sit amongst the rocks. There are humungous boulders that line the concretes’ edge with staircases that lead you down to them.
I wasn’t going to stop there that morning because I had already walked along the beach. I felt the pull to park and enjoy the waves for a bit. I grabbed my camera and sat by the. The seawall was behind me and the full endless ocean was in front of me.
For those that do not live down here, the seawall is a barrier which was built after the destructive 1900 storm that hit Galveston Island. It is to help protect he island against further damage from future hurricanes.
Where I was at, there was a small sidewalk in between the staircases. I decided to walk along it and exit back up the second staircase. Scattered on the ground were sticks and debris from tides that had washed ashore. Interestingly enough it appeared as though it had been there for a little while. I say this because within this pile of tan decayed foliage, were the smallest of sprouts that had begun to take root.
galveston seawall - copyright jamie zenteno 2023
This is so unexpected in such a desolate area between rocks and a wall. If you think about the ideal conditions which are usually required for things to grow in this was not it. Nothing should be growing here and yet there was growth … new life.
It is in the most unexpected area’s sometimes that things grow. We may be hard pressed in life circumstances but yet God allows things to grow amongst the places we have deemed desolate. Places where destruction once was and area’s where the hurricanes of life have obliterated.
Where I stood, over one hundred years ago it was a place of fatal destruction. It was estimated that nearly 8000 lives were lost in the 1900 storm. Even though the area looked different and wasn’t the same as before new life was springing forth.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9 says:
8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
In 2011 the worst fire the State of Texas had spread throughout Bastrop state park burning 96% of the 6565-acre park. There was an eerie feeling of the unliving surrounding you as one drove though the charred forest. In 2017 my family went camping there and new growth was sprouting above the destruction. The soil was restored and all was well once more. It didn’t look like it did before but it was growing in a new way.
18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
I pray that whatever this world, the enemy, other people or even yourself has taken away in your life – that it would be restored. Even if that restoration looks different than what it did originally, I pray that it would be restored and then some.
