There’s a huge tree in front of our house. It’s the tree that I fell in love with when we first saw the house, and eventually bought it and moved in. We’re situated on top of a slight hill so that our front lawn is basically a small, steep slope, and we have to climb two different sets of stairs to get to the front door. The master bedroom is right above the front door and porch, with three windows that face out to the tree. It’s one of those trees that seems to be the last on the street to grow in green, and perhaps the first to shed its leaves during the beginning of autumn. When it is full, its leaves are a bright Irish green that fall down in truckloads planting themselves all over the front yard and sprouting into little trees that I unfortunately have to pull up like weeds. It kind of breaks my heart in a way, like I’m preventing the tree’s offspring from growing up and reaching their fullest potential.

It’s a comforting presence with branches that hang low and cover the porch a little while still letting in bits of light and warmth. I love laying in bed sometimes and just letting myself drown in the green that fills the windows. On those days I don’t want to crawl out of bed, it feels like a soothing balm for my tattered spirit…

New life is springing up all around us now, and living in PA, it is particularly undeniable and beautiful. There’s something about this area where everything kind of explodes to new life – flowers, plants, trees. And…it’s even more poignant as A- and I struggle to create our own little life. I’ve only talked about this struggle with a few folks already, and though I find it difficult to share, I am realizing that I need to start accepting this as a part of my own journey, my own process, my own…story. After a couple of years of trying to get pregnant we recently found out that the only way for us to have our own offspring is through in vitro fertilization. I am grieving…the loss of all and any romantic notions of this whole getting-pregnant process in general…and not being able to be a part of nature’s cycle in a “natural” way…But even while that specific dream is still-born, I am feeling thankful for the inkling of other possibilities…and how I can bear hope in other ways even if it isn’t the “natural” way. Even as I watch little seedlings sprout all around me, whether it’s flowers or children, though painful, it’s healing, too. And in that healing, there’s always new life…

The tree has become a mothering presence to me…a reminder of all the mothering spirits in my life…and a picture of what I might be, too…

Mihee is an associate pastor at a Presbyterian church for youth and children in Pennsylvania. This post originally appeared at Mihee’s blog First Day Walking

I recently had the opportunity to read through Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart. This short book is a collection of reflections by the women of Magdalene. Magdalene is a two-year residential community for women who have survived lives of prostitution, violence, and abuse. The community exists not just to help these women, but to change our culture that not only buys and sells women, but often rejects them as too broken to be redeemed. To this end the women of Magdalene live by a disciplined order – a rule for living in community. The twenty-four principles of this rule are what the women of Magdalene reflected on as they contributed their stories and meditations.

The pervasive theme in the book is the power of love to bring about healing. Over and over the women confess that they had never felt loved or accepted by anyone until they came to the Magdalene community. This love is demonstrated in the principles of their order. One rule is that of proclaiming original grace – to look at each person’s journey beginning not with original sin but with original grace. The community uses the thistle as a symbol of this love. Generally seen as an unwanted weed, it is the one flower that grows on the streets where these women walk. As one woman wrote – “there were no weeds in Eden. Even the thistle was loved by God. I can see life in a thistle and how God created life in me.” (p.68)

Too often in the church we despise women who have lived lives like the women at Magdalene. Our fascination with sexual sin forces us to otherize even those who have been abused sexually. Our rejection and inability to offer unconditionally healing love though objectifies these women just as much as those who buy and sell her. I was touched to read how the simple acts of the Magdalene community connected with the hurt and broken women. For some it was the offer of a meal or a bag of toiletries, for others a living room with soft chairs or a kitchen with pots and pans, for others it was someone being willing to brush the knots out of their hair. It took some of these women years and multiple attempts to accept the healing offered to them, but they were never given up on or forced to heal on a timeline. They were loved and offered the benefits of community as they were – and it was that acceptance that made the difference in the long run.

The book is a quick read, but it has lasting impact as the stories of these women challenge the standard reaction of the church to “wayward women.” Just hearing their stories forces us to change our perspective. To move past our preoccupation with sin and respond instead with abundant grace.

Many of these women have been able to re-enter the world and develop job skills through the non-profit business Thistle Farms which makes natural bath and body products. You can follow their stories at their blog The Voices of Thistle Farms.