On a camping vacation in the Rocky Mountains I was amazed at a certain green plant on ledges of a bare rock. There is no dirt for its roots, yet it tenaciously clings to the rock through wind and storm. A park ranger provided the answer to this plant’s mysterious growth. The secret is simple. The plant’s seeds contain a strong acid that rots the rock and thus makes its own soil in which its roots cling. This amazing plant is saxifrage.
How to establish deep roots in unproductive soil is one of the great problems we face. Countless people are forced to live out their days in barren places. Many things combine to make our dwelling places barren. Circumstances beyond our control are often responsible. Ill health, physical handicaps, economic conditions are often beyond our power to alter. These make for sterile soil. Sometimes we are responsible for the barren places. We allow ourselves to be caught by circumstances we can control. We follow the path of least resistance until we are led to some rocky place. We become victims of our noncommitment until life grows dull on our hands. We have no purpose for which to live, no cause to which we can give ourselves, and so we find ourselves in barren places.
The amazing plant, saxifrage, has found the answer. It does not give up because it has only rocky ledges of bare rock upon which to grow. It goes to work, rotting the rock, until it makes its own soil for its roots to cling to. Here is our clue. When we are forced to stand in barren places we can turn to God and He will give us the inner spiritual power to make our own soil. The miracle God can work in our lives is no less than the miracle he works in nature.
Marie Daerr wrote about it in her “Spring Miracle.”
What is this miracle that makes
Of orchard tree, that winter bowed
A few short weeks ago a gay
Pink canopy, a fallen cloud?
After cataloging a series of nature miracles, the poet concludes.
Ah, friend, this miracle that lures
Spring loveliness from somber sod
Can also lift the human heart,
Can change a life…Its name is God.
When we are in a barren place let’s remember: If God can provide for the saxifrage to grow on barren rocks, he can provide us the rugged courage, the inner spiritual power to grow, no matter how barren our place may be.