God says: face facts. The old year is ending. You’ve outgrown it. The flowerpot that used to be home isn’t big enough anymore. Once it was spacious. Now your roots push uncomfortably against the walls. It’s time to stop contorting yourself to fit inside a story that’s too small for who you can become.
God whacks the bottom of your pot, sends you flying. Once you’re pried from the old year your roots will ache, shocked by open air. You’ll wonder whether you could have stopped growing. But one morning you’ll wake, realize you’ve stretched in ways you never knew you hadn’t done before.
The sun will feel like a benediction, like grace. You can’t help turning and re-turning toward the light, toward becoming. And wait ’til you see what dazzling flowers you’ll discover springing from your fingertips: your life renewed, beginning again.
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, 2017
This poem was lovingly shared by Jodi Davidson.
