Life appears
A Saturday Story
A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning up some tree branches from my backyard. Some of them had fallen over the winter, others were the result of some trimming work I had done. I had them piled up behind the house until I could do something with them. I had purchased a small firepit, so I decided to cut the branches up and burn them.
When I started to break them down into smaller pieces I noticed that several of the branches had budded out. Although they were cut off from their source of life, the roots of the trees from which they came; and though they were piled up on the ground waiting to be disposed of; and even though the branches themselves gave every indication of death (the bark having a lifeless gray look to it), there was yet signs of life.
Living things like to live. They strive for life. I’m not an arborist, but I suppose a good one could have worked with those branches and created new trees from them. Potentially they could have been grafted into another living tree and made new connections to a life giving source with roots into the soil.
While holding those tree branches in my backyard I was reminded that there is hope for life even in what appears to be a hopeless situation. All that needs to happen is to get connected to the One who can give and sustain life, Jesus Christ.
