Bring your bruises to Jesus. He will not break you off and caste you aside. That little bit of flame that remains, the small glow that just burns in desperate defiance of the approaching night, he will not snuff it out. The breath he breaths on you is to fan that smouldering wick into flame again. The hands that hold you now are not to caste you aside, but to draw you near.

I am a reed, but not like others.

I suppose I should be. I grow by the quiet waters of a sheltered pond. In the late Summer evenings I watch the same dance of the Dragonfly as she gently kisses the smooth surface and momentarily shatters the mirrored sky. I grow beneath the sprawling branches of an ancient tree that drinks the same water I do. I grow among my brethren, other reeds who bow their heads each evening, only to lift them again to greet the rising sun, nodding with the warm breeze that carries the smell of earth and harvest. I don’t grow alone.

I am a reed, but not like the others.

Oh, it may appear I am the clone of those who gather round me; tall and straight I stretch toward the sky. The creatures of the wetland make their home around my feet, the birds of the air come to harvest from my crown, and like my brethren, one day the workers from the village will come and harvest us to weave into their art. We reeds have a noble calling. But I am not like the others.

I am wounded. The fibres of my being have faltered. Where others stand strong and secure, I feel the soft place within, the weakness that threatens to topple me. While others sway with the gentle evening breeze, I fear that their breeze will be my storm. Rather than sway, I bend, and I know that one day the bend will become a break.

I am bruised.

When the other reeds of the river are woven into tapestries of beauty, I will not be wound around my brothers, I will still be standing here, alone. Or worse, I will be hewn in half and thrown down; a bruised reed broken and left behind. I’m sure it is only a matter of time. Like the fire that burns the chaff away, when it has done its intended work the labourers of the field stamp out the smouldering remains. Or like the nightwatchman who blows out the candle before the smouldering wick stings his eyes with unwanted smoke, so my tall crown will be cast down to the mud in which I stand.

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