No, this isn't an early Halloween post. I'm not writing about Zombies or anything of the sort. I'm talking today about nature and the parallel between the destruction of the storm we had several months back and life.
We huddled in the kitchen together as the winds roared outside. The power flickered and then went out. A darkness that would last a couple days. When I looked out the window after the passing of the storm, I noticed something odd. The landscape in our backyard, the horizon of trees, so to speak were gone. Where full, green, towering trees once stood, it looked like splintered toothpicks. Branches and whole parts of them lay on the ground; our fence was demolished, our shed, gone. My heart sank. Never before had we had such devastation, yet I knew we were more fortunate than most. Our house was standing, and we were unscathed.
Time passed, and though the view into the back of the house was forever changed, I began to get used to seeing it that way. Several kind people, helpers, came and cleared trees and removed our shed. We were very blessed with the amount of help we had.
There's a little window in my upstairs bathroom and when I have it open, I was still able to see the tops of the broken trees. I didn't like the look of the jagged, ugly, lifeless things. What about the birds? I thought... They loved those trees and probably had beautiful nests every summer filled with their babies. Now everything is dead.
Until it wasn't. Looking out that little window this morning, I almost gasped. For where the tops of the pointy, toothpick-like trees were, hundreds of green leaves grew upon the trees again! How I'd missed the "growing back" part is beyond me. I think I'd been so used to seeing something unsightly that I hadn't noticed the miracle. Dead things come alive!
So the trees grew back! And we can too my friends! For aren't we dead inside sometimes? Aren't we like the broken trees after a good wind of despair whooshes through our lives? Aren't we waiting and waiting for beauty to come again? We may bend, and we may even break a little, but it's the persistence of prayer and hope in the Lord that will get us through. Good friends, great talks. Small things we enjoy. Lovely music, a good book. And then all of a sudden, our leaves grow back. Our heart is restored! May it be so for you and me dear ones.
The yard after work was done, fence repaired, shed taken down. And the beautiful green trees once again!
This photo was right after the storm.
