Survivor

So here’s another tree story. She wasn’t a very pretty tree to start with. If she were a human, she’d be described as "gangly with spindly arms”, so we adorned her with one of the cadiz lamps spread around the garden and hung a few potted plants on her trunk. But she towered over our fence with branches spreading upward, and welcomed the birds in her “hair”, and for this I truly appreciated her.

Every morning, as I did my devotional time, their chirping from across my window always gave me comfort. They reminded me of Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Late last year though, her branches were cut off because they hung over the neighbour’s lot where a new house was being built. Over the months, the construction workers cut off whatever sprouted from her top. I was distressed over this because I lost the birds and the greenery I had been accustomed to. But I couldn’t do anything about it. Then something wonderful began to happen. Tiny leaves began to sprout from her trunk, surrounding it with green, like a grass skirt. Plant experts say this can happen IF THE TREE IS UNDER STRESS. As I view my brave little tree, I ponder on the lesson she is teaching me. Stressful times call us to make do with what we have been given, and to keep striving even when we are cut off or cut down. With our Lord supplying our needs, the outcome is always beautiful.