Based in the desert of West Texas, Amara Bratcher is a full-time student minister who also writes, takes pictures and volunteers with at-risk children. She has written a book entitled The Bridge That Love Built for adopted kids who have gaps in the early years of their lives. She likes her coffee French Pressed and wears her hair curly 365 days a year. 

The Things We Did Not Plant

I spend a great deal of my time uprooting what I did not plant.

My neighbor, Memaw as I know her, has a beautiful trumpet vine. She and her husband James bought it from a garden catalog decades ago. For years, it has carpeted her side of our shared fence and climbed the trellis she installed. But then…what she planted began to show up in my yard, encroaching on
my zucchini,
my hydrangeas,
my herb garden,
even random patches of grass in the middle of my yard.

Each time the vine heralds its uninvited presence, I am reminded.

Life is full of things we did not plant.
Relationships, community, family….all that close proximity and it’s inevitable that something will show up in your world that you didn’t ask for.
I could name you all the things, but I’m sure you know.

What is cultivated in my sphere will impact yours, if you get close enough.
And if you stay close enough, it might just start growing in your life too.
Sometimes this transference is beautiful, sometimes its invasive.

Loving and living with children from hard places teaches this -

you didn’t plant it
they didn’t ask for it
but you have to deal with the things you did not plant
uproot
clear the ground
plant in faith
first sign of unwanted growth?
start again

Memaw

Memorial