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!