A tough season

Our driveway has a teardrop-shaped roundabout near the house.  In the center, we have been creating a natural woods garden we call the Prayer Garden.  I haven’t measured it, but I would say its twenty yards from the pointy end to the round end and ten yards at its widest point.  In it are several varieties of Tennessee hardwood trees, red cedar, white oak, persimmon, and red oak.  The most massive two trees in the garden are side by side black gum trees.  In the past, the trees leaf early and de-leaf early, turning a deep crimson in the fall.  The two are probably forty to fifty feet tall.

I see these two trees at the left edge of my pondering window.  They are different this year.  Granted, it is still spring, but for early May, the leaves are scrawny.  For two weeks, I have been waiting for them to finish their growth to maturity.  Some leaves have grown to their typical size, but most are a quarter of their standard size.  And some are less than a half-inch long, tiny.  The higher up the tree, the smaller the leaves become.  They are not the appearance of healthy trees.

I do not want to lose these trees!  The truth is, I don’t want to forfeit any of our trees.  I love living in the woods.  Our house is not visible from the road; I just can’t cut down the trees to show off the house.  (And I like the privacy.)  But, I don’t think we will lose the trees.  They may not look healthy, but I think they are.

I remember earlier this spring, just as the leaves had burst open from their buds, we had a below-freezing nighttime low.  I’m guessing the tender newborn leaves were frozen by the icy temperature that night.  Most of the new foliage killed, and some of it was just damaged.  A few of the buds had not yet opened, and those leaves now look healthy.

My black gums do not look healthy this year.  They may later in May, but right now, the twins look distorted and deformed.  But this spring will flow into summer then into fall, and all the leaves will float to the ground where I will have to deal with them.  (That is a huge downside to living in the woods.)  Then, next spring, the black gums will leaf out again just as their Divine engineer designed them.  This year’s stunted growth wholly forgotten.

That is what my gum trees are teaching me this year; there will always be another spring for new growth.  Spring is coming.  Surely you may have to endure a summer and fall of deformation of your dreams and aspiration for life, but spring is coming.  It may be in this life, for the follower of Jesus Christ, it will undoubtedly be in the next life.

We may have to endure the shame and consequences of our bad decisions or even the bad choices of others, but when you chose to exchange your life for the life of Christ, you can rest assured that a new spring is on its way.  Your life may be frostbitten several times, but a fresh spring is coming.  It may be arriving as you read these words.  Right now, you may not be very healthy, but if the life of Christ is in you, there is a healthy life in you, and it will soon bring forth the glory you have been created and then transformed to display.

Photo – One of the black gum trees in this post.