The Arrow: A Launching Process

An ARROW can only be released by first pulling it back.  When life pulls you back, it simply means you are launching into something amazing.”

Whether it’s a card at Barnes and Noble, a wall plaque at Silver Steer, our newest forearm tattoo, or a tank top at Target, we have fallen in love with arrows.  And at {Be}yond Yoga, we are no different (hey, we seek to be in this world, just not of it! – John 18:36)  But the use of the arrow has a meaning beyond it being the current trend.  We strategically placed arrows in some of our branded tanks to be a reminder of the quote above and reminded deeper still of John 15.

Our Father, the Great Gardener, and the True Vine tells us, “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does not bear fruit, He prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful…Remain in Me.” (John 15:2, 4)  When one prunes, they pull back the brush and weed through to cut away, shape, and direct new growth.  Our Father in heaven does the same.  The pulling back is not a punishment, but rather preparation for the next thing.

On May 1st when we celebrated launching the studio, a dear friend gifted me the arrow necklace pictured above (she just happens to also be a brilliantly gifted photographer), and she wrote me a most beautiful message in a card.  She reminded me that “our God is so good and so faithful, that he had been planning this gift all along and had been eagerly waiting to give it to me.”  The pulling back is necessary to launch us to this very day.  Oh, tears of joy and refreshment came!  And, to this day I haven’t taken the necklace off.

It was C.S. Lewis who said, “We need to be reminded more than instructed.”  Let this be a reminder to us all…God is never finished with us!  He simply pulls us back and relaunches us over and over again. Our job is to abide, dwell, and remain in HIM.  May HE find us fully trusting HIS launching process…and as Buzz Lightyear would say “to infinity and {be}yond!