Morning,
I don’t know if you remember or not but a couple of years ago I had a tree planted in my front yard. I was worried back then that it would never live but it did. I was glad about that. It’s been a year now, well, 11 months since we had 14 inches of rain in two days here in Nashville and while you heard about the floods; what often gets over looked is the fact that after the flood we had one of the worst droughts we’ve had in a while. The tree in my yard survived the flood but by the end of last summer the leaves turned brown, withered and then refused to fall to the ground.
The tree has been a vivid picture of the fragile nature of life for over six months now. Of course in the back of my head I tried to not just give up on it. It’s not like I want it to die or anything. But I am not an optimist by any stretch of the imagination. I have had fleeting thoughts of trying to figure out the best way to pull it out of the ground.
At the same time I’ve also been going up to it occasionally and checking for a pulse. I didn’t find one in February, or the first couple of weeks of March. I mean I saw potential buds but they had been there all winter. I pulled off some seeds that were still clinging to the limbs that were all shriveled and black and I planted them in a pot to check for life. Grass grew in the pot but not much else.
I poured some miracle grow on the ground. If anything needed a miracle it was this tree. I kept coming back to look but I could never really tell if there was change or not – a bud looks like a bud to me if it isn’t budding. The end of March came and one day last week my wife said she thought she saw some green. I went out and looked and, well, it could have been green. I didn’t remember seeing green before but I wasn’t 100% sure that it was green. It could have been a pale shade of brown. But my wife mixed up a gallon of miracle grow and poured it around the tree – just to be safe.
I’m pretty sure she is amused with my attempts at plant management. She certainly got a kick out of me planting azaleas with a reciprocating saw a few weeks ago. (It beats cutting roots with an axe). She calls me Red Green from time to time.
I’m not going to bet my paycheck on it or anything but I think when I looked at the tree this morning that it is alive. It was as if last summer it went into a prevent defense and just shut down in order to survive the winter. It soaked up the winter rains. It soaked up the miracle grow. It soaked up the prayers I prayed for it. And when it was ready; it began to show its life again.
I know a lot of people like that. They’re living life and every thing seems to be going well and then something happens and they shut down. To protect themselves; they shut down and though they appear to have stopped living they may simply be repairing the damage that was done and storing up supplies before they go back to life as it was.
Now, not everyone makes their way back. Some just turn bitter and die even while their heart keeps beating. But looking dead, looking broken, looking dysfunctional doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. It is possible to recover from the fall, or the mutiny as I like to call it. It is possible to soak up the miracle grow and blossom from death into life. I like to think that is a picture of my life: A Hopeful start crushed by a million things which forced me to dig deep to find nourishment. To the outside world it probably looks like I’ve been dead or going backwards for the last twenty years but I think I’m feeling my roots soaking up nourishment. I think I’m feeling the miracle grow starting to feed my broken limbs. I think it may be time to start budding. I want to bud. I’m tired of hibernating in a casket.
Maybe Desmond and Molly Jones got it right: Obla de Obla da life goes on Rah!. Life goes on. Death goes on. Where your feet go determines the destination. You can’t walk on the path of death and expect to live. Because, contrary to popular opinion ideas do have consequences but more than that actions have consequences. Good ideas that stay trapped in your head lead to death. It is not knowing that brings life but doing: Repenting leads to salvation, not thinking about repenting. Changing from disobedience to obedience is all that matters. The intent to change paves the road to death.
I am praying that my winter hiatus is over and that I’m not delusional when I think I see green beginning to appear on the limbs of my heart. It’s time to be an example of life to a dying world and those struggling to stay alive. Somebody has got to prove that there is life after birth.
Grace and Peace,
Brad
No comments:
Post a Comment