purposeful pain

"I am an explorer, then, and I am also a stalker, or the instrument of the hunt itself. Certain Indians used to carve long grooves along the wooden shafts of their arrows. They called the grooves "lightening marks," because they resembled the curved fissure lightening slices down the trunks of trees. The function of lightening marks is this: if the arrow fails to kill the game, blood from a deep wound will channel along the lightening mark, streak down the arrow shaft, and spatter to the ground, laying a trail dripped on broadleaves, on stones, that the barefoot and trembling archer can follow into whatever deep or rare wilderness it leads." Annie Dillard, (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

Sometimes the drops of blood we follow are from those long gone - they have left a legacy- a mark on this world that inspires us to good and real and true living. Sometimes, however, the drops are fresh. Left by someone we know and hold dear. And we can see the striations being carved, painfully, into their life. We hurt for them, but we are thankful because it is not their blood that is dripping down. It is the Lifegiver's own blood. The arrow that is our own sister, our friend, has pierced the very Creator and He is carving lightening marks into her life so that His soul-filling blood can drip down to the ground, to lie at our feet. I want to bravely, reverently, follow into the deep wilderness. I will be mindful of the painful carvings that have provided my path. And I will be thankful.