Sistering

Dear Friends,

There’s this collection of trees I used to walk by on the regular.  I don’t see them much anymore, as I don’t walk that way very often these days.  When I used to walk by it, it would inevitably make me smile, as it’s five trees merged together, five trees growing out of one root system, separate entities rooted into the earth together. The reason that particular set of trees would make me smile is it always reminded me of myself and my siblings.  There are five of us also, separate entities, growing different directions, but rooted in the same original system.

I was walking by those trees the other day, the same day I happened to get an estimate for some work I needed done on my home.

If you’ve ever done renovations on a house, you might have heard of the concept of “sistering”.  When you “sister” something in home renovations, you take something that is weak, and instead of taking it out and replacing it, you shimmy something strong right next to it and attach the two of them.  So, if you’re talking floor joists, you’d allow the weak joist to be strengthened by the strong piece of wood without removing the original joist.

As I walked by that stand of trees, thinking about my siblings, I starting thinking about those “sisters” in our lives.  Our family, our friends…people who walk with us, who stand by us, who shimmy next to us when we’re weak and help us to be stronger.  People we allow to speak into our lives, who might ask the hard questions and offer perspectives that are different from our own...who might help us think differently about the hardships in our lives.

My dear friends, can we be a little more open to the “sisters” in our lives?  Can we allow others to shimmy alongside us and to help make us stronger?  This life isn’t meant to be lived alone, we are stronger, we are more stable when we have others around us.  While we might sometimes see that as weakness, in reality it serves to make us stronger.

I hope you have an amazing week my friends.

Love 
Krista
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