Dogwood by Chris Fabry

we’ve finally found something.”
    “Really? Like what?”
    “Finally hit a nerve. All this time we’ve been dancing around the edges of your life, and we finally find it in this journal of yours.”
    “You mean, writing? You think—”
    “It’s never only one thing, honey. It’s not just writing or the idea of putting something on paper for others to read. There’s something more here.”
    The wrinkles on her face came into focus as she leaned forward. “You struggle. You fight and you claw inside that head of yours. You wrestle with God, with the idea that he actually cares for you, with the place your children have brought you, and athousand other things. There’s something about your struggle others need to know. That they’ll benefit from.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Ruthie stood and picked up one of the glass objects her husband had created. A dogwood bloom. Two long petals, two short, like the cross. A bloodstain on each. At the center, a crown of thorns. Our town had embraced the story of Christ crucified on a dogwood tree. The legend said it once grew straight and tall. Jesus promised it would never be used for executions again, and as the poem went, “Slender and twisted it shall always be, with cross-shaped blossoms for all to see.”
    Ruthie cradled the glass gingerly, studying it and holding it up to the light like a priceless gem. “God puts every one of us here for a purpose. There’s some pull on our lives that draws us toward that purpose, and the farther we go away from it, the more unhappy we are. The closer we get, the more we yearn and desire it.”
    “I’m a mother and a wife. I don’t have time for purpose or desire or being drawn to anything but sleep and laundry.”
    She smiled. “There’s a reason you spend nights in your closet. I think you’re there because you’re not even close.”
    “Close to what?”
    “To what you were really put here to be. Not to do. To be . Doing is overrated. Being is where God works. What he’s most concerned about.”
    I frowned. “What, you want me to start an orphanage? run for office?”
    “Nobody knows that but you and God. And you don’t even know the half of it. You see, he looks at our lives as a whole, not just today, tomorrow, yesterday, and next week. Not even this year and next. He’s not counting your failures and your mistakes and keeping a running tab like heaven’s waiter. He sees the end just as well as the beginning. He knows about the pit you’re in right now.”
    “The closet.”
    “Exactly. He knows where you’re headed. You’ll get there if you keep struggling. Most people think the struggle means failure. It’s actually the best thing that could happen. That struggle will pull you out on the other side a lot stronger, a lot deeper. It’s like cooking a good meal. You don’t do that in a microwave, my dear. You let it simmer and boil and simmer some more until it’s right. And you do that in an oven over lots of time and some high temperatures. Life is a process without a timer.”
    It was a stretch to believe my nights in the closet weren’t worthless siftings of the mind. “So you think I’m supposed to write?”
    Ruthie rolled her eyes. “It’s not a supposed to. And, yes, you will find whatever that thing is.”
    “But how do you know?” I said. “What was your purpose?”
    Her eyes twinkled like I imagined Santa’s would the night before Christmas. “When I was little, times were hard. I grew up along a creek, and I’d spend hours walking up and down it, surveying the flow of the water, just like you used to do. One day I was looking into the water and saw the reflection of a young girl across from me. From that day on, I knew I had a friend. We spent hours together. Talking. Laughing. Having tea parties. Every time we were together, it was like pouring water from an endless pitcher. Her life into mine, mine into hers. Over the years, I’ve replaced her with others, usually younger