Why Meadowspring?

My wife Sally and I love the outdoors. It’s a place full of beauty, relaxation, and endless walks so long that you can forget about everything else in life and simply just be. One of the most unique places that we have walked is at a nearby fen. Situated behind a large cemetery, one has to drive through a place focused on death all the way to the back of the cemetery where you are suddenly immersed in a place teaming with life and some of the most treasured plants in Illinois. Wondering what a fen is? It’s one of the rarest habitats, formed with just the right type of water, soil, and a source of water from underground. It’s a place so rare that one fen can take as long as ten thousand years to form. One could never simply be recreated.

For us, we have a particular passion for working with people who have been through abuse or trial, and for those people, we see their journey through life and counseling much like the course of life that creates a fen.

It all starts underground. Rain water that falls from the sky slowly sinks into the deep, darkest places. Maybe you are in one of those dark places yourself. Whether it be from abuse, trials in life, worry, relationship issues, a simple problem or challenge, depression, or a deep feeling of being all alone. Flowing underground, the water is seemingly nothing. It is unused, unseen, and untouched by the light. Would you ever suspect that something that seems so much like nothing could not only dramatically change, but even change into something more beautiful and treasured than anything else? That’s exactly what happens in a fen. After journeying underground - a journey admittedly of unknown length and certainly obstacles - the water, perfectly clean and also filled with minerals and nutrients, bubbles up magically from under the rocks, seemingly out of nowhere, into a stream of crystal clear water that works its way through a valley giving life to some of the rarest, most beautiful flowers and plants.

For people going through challenges or trials in life, you may feel forever stuck underground, but the same opportunity for hope, joy, and purpose exists.  But not only might you find healing, you may even find that your life has more joy and purpose than those who have not been through such circumstances, and also that you have people who uniquely value and treasure you.

Trials challenge and wound us, some of us deeply, but people who have been through those experiences can also come to value life and value others far more. They are not satisfied with just being, but desire something deeper. They long for joy, love, and relationship more than ever.

At Meadowspring, we believe that you can work through whatever challenges you are experiencing to find hope and joy amidst trial, and to find yourself feeling not just “normal” or acceptable, but instead uniquely treasured and valued – not just water that has survived and found its way out of the ground, but instead water that gives life to others, or a flower that peaked out of the ground one day to find itself in one of the most unique and special of places. There’s a sign up in our office that says “bloom where you’re planted.” But what many people don’t realize is that people who go through hard trials in life can end up planted not among thorns, but somewhere bounding with even greater opportunity than others.