Yellowstone

It's like another world, Yellowstone. Full of springs and geysers bubbling away. Melting the stone before your very eyes, steaming and spouting and reaching towards the sky. I'm not really sure what I was expecting when we got here but certainly not the wonder that is bubbling, acidic mud. Not the rainbow colored pools of water creating sulfuric steam that I had to walk through.

 To be honest... I loved it. I loved looking at the trees and flowers that were growing so close to hostile territory.

 At one point we were staring out at the grand canyon of Yellowstone and there was this poor tree, alone on top of a rock at the edge of an abyss. Kyle wondered aloud, "Do you think the tree ever wishes it were somewhere else?" and I responded, "Probably, but he's also like,'well, I can't really move, guess I'll just grow anyway.'"

 So instead the tree twists to fight gravity creating a gnarled appearance and pretty soon it will grow so tall that it will fall. Maybe only a few hundred feet before it get's caught on a rock but it will fall either way. But it doesn't really have a choice, so it grows despite it's circumstances. And so the small flowers grow a midst bacteria and trees and shrubs are showered with muddy mists.

 I think about how we sometimes find ourselves in undesirable circumstances and we think, How the heck did I get here! But there we are.

We don't always get to choose where we grow, but we do get to choose to grow. Perhaps we should take note from nature and grow despite our surroundings, reaching heavenward always.