Yesterday morning I got the chance to have a group meeting with a few coworkers. We used this tool, Story Cards, as the ice-breaker to reflect on our career journey. It was a such great chat. In the midst of the conversation, one of the coworkers made some compliments on my writing. It brought such an encouragement. In fact, it was a timely ignition to a dream that was on the edge of dying. I have not posted anything on my blog for more than a year and have thought about bringing down the site altogether. But as I heard the comment, it got me thinking maybe I need to continue the path, with short writing regularly. So here I am, releasing some sparks to sustain a flame that is dimming, trying to build up the momentum once again . . .

Today, I attended a women’s conference by Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth. She used the root system of the redwood tree as an analogy for the power of community. Redwood trees can grow hundreds of feet in height, so we may think they must have deep roots to support such height. But turns out that “redwood tree roots are very shallow, often only five or six feet deep. But they make up for it in width, sometimes extending up to 100 feet from the trunk. They thrive in thick groves, where the roots can intertwine and even fuse together. This gives them tremendous strength against the forces of nature. This way they can withstand high winds and raging floods.” (http://sunnyfortuna.com/explore/redwoods_and_water.htm)

Indeed, we don’t grow in isolation. We need community to encourage each other to live out our full potential and to shoulder each other in the midst of storms.