Train Up a Vine

My adoption scared me at first. All I had ever known was the warm wet comfort of the nursery. Suddenly hands reached in and pulled me from my bed and placed me, gently, into another black carrier. Happily I looked left and right to see several of my best friends join me. Then we got into an SUV and took off down the road. I had no idea what to expect.

The journey wasn't too many hours, and then the two people who had adopted us took us all out of the car and set us down in an open area. No roof covered our heads. There we sat, waiting and wondering. That night I got to see what had only been fuzzy and dim before. I got to see stars, clear and bright! How can I express the beauty?

For a while, life continued like this. The sun rose and set, more piercing and brilliant than I had ever felt it. We talked, my friends and I, but only at night when quiet settled around us. We remembered what our nursery caregiver had told us we would become. Would it really happen? Would we really grow big and complete our important mission?

Then the two people came for us again. This time we left our carriers behind and sank blissfully into a deep soft bed. We could stretch out a little. After getting drinks, we started to feel warm wet and sleepy, just like back home. I became so very glad that we had left the nursery.

Day after day we got to feel the sun and the open breezes. We drank and took baths mostly at night. And we started to grow. Our adoptive parents liked to stop by and admire us. They got really excited when some of us started to blossom into adolescence.

But before long our home started getting crowded. Some of my friends, now siblings, were outgrowing our bed. They flopped over onto me and made it difficult for me to see the stars at night. I didn't know how long I could take this uncomfortable closeness.

The strangest thing happened one day recently that was both a little painful and later quite comfortable. Our parents came and began moving our limbs around. I was glad to get free of the tangle of bodies I had suffered under, but then my limbs were moved into very different positions and, would you believe, ropes were wrapped around my body and tied up above me! This didn't seem right at all and I couldn't understand how our nice, loving parents could do such a thing! And they were so happy about it, as if it was good for us!

When they finished, I glanced around and saw that we were all in the same situation. Before I could start to complain, however, one of my new brothers said how nice it was that he didn't feel like he was falling out of bed anymore. And then a sister said she was glad he wasn't squishing her anymore. Someone else said how nice it was to just lean back on the ropes and relax. Hmm, I thought. They are right. They are all right. Instead of fighting the ropes I started to relax too. Maybe our parents knew what they were doing after all.

My family

Spare the twine, spoil the vine.


"Train up a [vine] in the way he should go, and when he is [mature] he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6, NKJV).