BE LIKE A TREE

THIS TREE....

This tree that represents sorrow for a community of young people...

This tree that is between my house and town...

This tree that I pass everyday...

This tree....

Has taught me so many things.

Unfortunately a young man in our community was involved in a high speed chase with the police and ended up tragically and fatally driving his truck into this tree.

It was not but hours later that the flowers and decorations and heartfelt offerings began covering the tree... it is now MONTHS later and new things continue to show up.

But it was within a few days of the accident occuring that I noticed something that I am still completely fascinated by and that has inspired many lessons in this little heart of mine.

It is something that most professional landscapers and arborists already know. If you look closely at this picture you can see that there is a huge section of bark that was torn from the tree during the wreck. If you look even closer you can see that on the right hand side somebody picked up a section of the bark that was salvageable and attached it back to the tree. WHAT?

As we were driving by I asked KC why anybody would do that... Do they want the place of impact not to look so bad? What is the purpose of putting this bark back? (And after stopping later and looking more closely - it wasn't just placed there it was NAILED to the tree.) KC nonchalantly answered "The bark will reattach itself to the tree to help it heal and then the tree might not die." WHAT? And the wheels in my brain started churning. AMAZING! And it's true... Here's an e-how link I looked up... http://www.ehow.com/how_4549978_heal-tree-bark-damage.html

I cannot begin to explain what lessons this brought to my mind. Oh the SUH-WEET analogies. Here are a few thoughts...

1. When we lose a part of ourselves and are at risk of dying spiritually it is others that can reach down and help put us back together. Allowing others to serve us is sometimes more important than we realize. SOMETIMES HEAVENLY FATHER SAVES US THROUGH THE SERVICE OF OTHERS.

2. SOMETIMES WHAT WE NEED TO SAVE US OR HELP FIX US IS RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES. It is up to us to know what we need to survive. To be strong. It is up to us to realize when things ARE working. Then, when they stop working, we can pick up the pieces that have fallen out of place and fix things again. A tree knows how to make things work when all the pieces are in the proper place. We should too. We should know and continually strive to make sure we have all the pieces and they are all working correctly. This is how we become strong.

3. When we go through trials in life, whether they are spiritual or temporal IT'S OKAY TO BE A DIFFERENT PERSON when we come out than from when those trials started. This gives you character. This tree will always show the effects of the truck hitting it. And it's okay. It gives it character. Most people like to say your trials make you stronger. They forget to add the word 'eventually' to the end of the sentence. Our trials make us stronger 'EVENTUALLY'. Sometimes our trials weaken us for a looooong time. That's another blog post... BUT- Your trials DO make you unique IMMEDIATELY. And, most likely, you are probably inadvertently drawing attention to yourself and people are learning from you just by watching you. Waiting to see how you respond. If you live or die. If you continue to suffer or gather the strength to get through. You choose if you are a good example or a bad one. But there are always people watching.

4. And my favorite thought when I drive by this tree every day is simply this: "BE LIKE A TREE." Years ago when I was given an assignment at church working with the teenage girls I went to a training meeting and the woman said to us "Be like a tree. Strong and steady but flexible when you need to be." I had heard this before but had never really applied it to my life. During some hard times with teenage girls I'd open up my notes from that training meeting and that quote would always stand out. I have since applied it in many areas of my life. And even though it is frustrating at times when I don't want to be flexible, it works. It works.

This tree has brought many other thoughts to my mind. Some very personal and some a little out there. Maybe someday down the road in a later post I will update you on my tree thoughts but for now this will do.

BE LIKE A TREE!

Summertime Memory Lane - And it came to PASS

On my mind today:
I haven't seen my sister in a year.
I haven't seen my big brother in 6 months.
I haven't seen my little brother in almost a month.

This feeling overwhelms me every summer because summers used to be ALL about them. I'm not good remembering how things looked or what color the walls were and such. I make my memories with feelings. It's still something I do today. I cannot tell you what Sister So and So wore to church but I remember the feeling of the conversation I had with her. Even if I can't remember what it was about. When things feel heavy, I feel it. When things feel light I feel it. Please don't be upset when I don't notice your make-up or haircut or new car. I'm working on it, really. But if you need someone to just sit with you and feel what you might be feeling I'll be there.

I've been thinking about some of my happy feelings from childhood. There are too many to write about in one post but I wanted to jot this one down.

I 'grew up' in a small town called Dayton, Idaho out in the middle of farmland. Just over the river and a few miles down the hill from the now infamous Napolean Dynamite town, Preston, ID.
Growing up means I spent from age 5 to age 11 there. The previous years were spent in Boise and Pocatello and ages 11 -18 were spent in Nampa. So I guess "growing up" is not the correct phrase. It should read 'I spent my unbelievably wonderful childhood in a small town called Dayton, Idaho'. Yes. That's better.

I've tried to re-create my childhood summers for my children. Even going as far as moving out of a subdivision when they were 1 & 3 and landing in McCall and eventually buying a home in the middle of a giant meadow a couple miles long and surrounded by forest. Okay- it's not the country and they're not at the neighbors a half mile down the road feeding baby calves and getting in trouble in the hay barn, but they DO have free roam. We'll talk about the memories they are making another day but right now I want to focus on some summer memories with my brothers and sister.

One of my favorite memories of summertime with my brothers and sister happened in my room when I had the flu. I know, weird, huh... I had the flu and it was a hot, hot day. It was probably like 85 degrees hahaha!... (which is about the temperature at which my kids feel like they're going to die) and that night a GREAT BIG STORM moved in.

There is no place more beautiful than Cache Valley, UT to watch a lightning storm. My sister and I shared a giant room. We shared a room for 18 years until I moved out. When she comes to visit I still feel like we should kick all the other people out of our lives and share a room for the night.

Our room in Dayton had 2 HUGE windows. When the storm rolled into the Valley at about 10 that night my entire family came to my room to watch the storm. They didn't care that I had the flu. I didn't care that they were all sitting on my bed. It was beautiful. Surrounded by my family in the middle of a storm. With the flashes of light and the BOOOOOOMS! of thunder. Safe and happy in my bed.

"Surrounded by my family in the middle of a storm." is yet another way to say how I feel about them to this day. Storms are raging in all of our lives right now. Spiritual storms. Temporal storms. Big ones. Little ones. In my case, a few life threatening ones. (I'm ALMOST ready to write about that). But even in the middle of my storms when I feel like I can't hear my own thoughts because of the thunderous booms- my family comes to me.

How I wish we were all little again and could jump into my twin sized bed in my giant bedroom and stare out the window on our knees and just watch. And not worry about how long the storm would last and if we were gonna make it out alive... I never had fearful thoughts as a child. I would always be okay. I was always safe. I had my family with me. I was 9 and the world was good.

And now even when they are 2000 miles away (Heather in N. Dakota) or 1000 miles away (Bill in Wyoming) or even just down in the Valley (Mom, Dad, and Jeff in Nampa), I know they are there with me through my storms. Somebody once told me... "In the scriptures it doesn't say 'And it came to STAY'. It always says 'And it came to PASS'." Our storms will pass. They will. And just like 26 years ago in my childhood bedroom - my family will be there. And we are waiting and watching and ON OUR KNEES together (even though we're far apart) waiting for the storms to pass. I will always be okay. I will always be safe. I have my family with me. I am 35 and the world is good.