She sifted through the photos, old photos, of their youth. They were still the same, those children. They hadn't grown or changed, they were still laughing just as they did so long ago, still walking across the tarmac to their waiting family, still planning to make the move that directed their entire lives and who their children would be and why they would eventually part ways.
And that was the answer, the reason at the core. They hadn't grown together. It's impossible for two vines to grow together if one refuses to grow, refuses to act like a vine but must immitate a fence post. The one growing vine will curl around it and even put tentacles into the fence-post-like vine, but eventually it must shoot out and away, seeking other company in the sunlight.
And so she had, while he stayed in his childhood, afraid to grow toward the light, and even shunning the touch of her leaves, planting himself firmly in the mud, and ridiculing her as she reached with all her might upward, ever outward, toward the joyous, rain-filled air. They were never alike. They were planted wrongly in the garden.
Oh, it wasn't the Gardener's fault. But it was so nonetheless. Some underling had made the mistake, seeing the vine reaching, reaching toward the other in its shoot days. The Gardener had simply allowed it, to give the underling a lesson perhaps. But the underling hadn't got it, had left the two, she wrapped around him, he unwilling to grow, all the years locked by the rule of the garden - no one must move what has been planted - for so many, many years. And little vines had come up through the soil between them, sheltered by the growing vine from the intense sun of summer and worst rain of winter. But the two vines did not grow together. It was impossible.
The little vines were grown large enough now to stand much of the sun and rain on their own. She was almost as dead as the vine-turned-fence-post beside her. The rain fell gently on her upturned leaves: "Come out! Come out! Higher, climb higher into the open space where the sun will shine! We are almost finished watering the earth for awhile, the light will come again. Lift up your head!"
And so she did, as she put the pictures back into the disintegrating album. She looked up, and looked around. And she wasn't disappointed, there was the light! There was a whole garden all around her! And she knew there was the Gardener, though she couldn't yet see Him. And there were other vines, and especially that one....
Then she heard the voice of the Gardener saying, "Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh." And she knew it was time to put away the former things, for behold, all things are becoming new! And she stretched out her tendrils toward that other vine with all her might, but something gave her pause, something undescribable here.
But reach she must. The Gardener had said it, and that voice she never disobeyed had commanded her to LIVE. So live she must.
She put away the old photos. She would begin tomorrow to sort them all, like she'd planned for so many years, but life had got in the way. Just like it had got in the way of her growing toward the light. She would grow in a new direction, alone in the garden if necessary. She would be growing, though, and living. If not, she would end up a fence post, good for nothing but hemming in and saying "No!", even when "Yes!" is what's written.
This was her salvation.
But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us — by me and Silas and Timothy — was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.
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