charity, chainsaws, and change

The trees are over 50 years old. My great aunt probably planted them not too long after they had the house built, a deciduous pair near all the evergreens. The powers that be decided the trees exhibited little signs of life and being precariously close to the house the time had come to take them out. In one day, the chainsaws destroy 50 years of painstaking growth.

As the chainsaw hums its staccato tune, I watch branches with solid cores and green leaves tumble down. The trees, welcoming spring had put forth leaves in spite of their moss-covered trunks, as if begging for the chance to live another year.

I ponder the grace that grants me one more day. The stay of execution based on the love that desires I also bear fruit, since the axe is already laid at the roots of those trees that produce nothing good (Matt 3.10). While I have breath I can grow and change, bringing forth love, joy, peace, patience and the like.

Sometimes it takes long years to see significance, to see the leaves unfurling, to see His glory reflected in my actions. Sometimes I forget that the goal is not my achievements and I despair until I remember another lesson of the trees: always point upward. That, by His grace I can do.