Dec
Your Roots Run Deep
A Lesson in Tapping
No, I’m not referring to dancing.
The first weekend I came to Madison (Wisconsin), I was fortunate to stay at a hotel two blocks from the state capitol building.
On Saturday morning, we saw lots of people heading up to the capitol. Honestly, I was surprised to see so much activity on a weekend. The hotel desk attendant informed us that a weekly farmer’s market is held around the capitol every Saturday.
This isn’t your local community farmer’s market…this is a gigantic enterprise circling the giant government building on all four sides (on both sides of the sidewalk).
We walked for nearly an hour around to see all the booths. Local cheese, produce and fresh-baked goodies from Amish families enticed me at every turn. The thing I was most surprised to see was the delicious maple syrup. I had to have some.
I have always heard of syrup from Vermont, but never from Wisconsin, so that is why I was surprised to see it at the market. I am SO glad I picked some up. I don’t ever think I’ll be able to go back to the synthetic stuff in the store.
The other night I remembered this experience, and my curiosity got the better of me. I have never tapped a maple tree to extract the sap to make syrup, but I decided to see if I could find out more about the process. I found this short video (about 4 minutes long)
The tapping process is fairly simple. You drill a hole in the side of the tree, insert the tap, hang the bucket…and wait.
What You Can’t See Yet
You don’t see it yet, but you are much like the maple tree. Great power and strength lies hidden in its roots. It stands tall, imperfect, yet unashamed.
The best part—the sweetest and most potent sap—lies beneath the surface under the roughness of the exterior layers.
A couple of comments from the video struck me. After a particularly cold night that gives way to a warm morning, there is a wonderful “run” where the sap just streams from the tree.
So if you are in the middle of the dark, cold night, remember the maple tree. A warmer morning is coming! Stand in your strength. Stand tall in your perfect imperfections. You are more powerful than you can imagine.
As the sap flows freely from the tree without effort or strain, you can allow your power, love and grace to flow just as easily as the maple tree. There is a whole wide world waiting to taste the delicious gift that you have to offer.
If you could see a maple tree planed, you would be able to see all the “scars” from where it had been tapped over the years. (They call that character in the wood). Once the scars have formed from where the bark has been punctured, the sap will never flow that way again.
Instead of working so hard to hide your pain or scars, recognize that you are beautiful. Your scars are the crafters of your character. The power that lies within you is more than enough to lift you above any adversity that may come into your life.
You are so much more!
More than your adversity.
More than the vision you have of yourself as powerless.
You are even so much more than the image you have of yourself succeeding.
You are the power of God to touch the life of another man or woman, boy or girl and bring healing to his or her wounds. You can tap yourself and lift them up in order to remind them of what you already know…your roots run deep!
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