Learn a lesson from trees. I was hiking in the mountains of California and saw an oak that had grown around a huge boulder. This rock might have crushed the tree under its weight, or starved the tree of nutrients by allowing it no soil, or caused the tree to wither and fall from the sheer size of solid granite. But the tree, as if possessing a will of its own, did not give up easily. It grew around the massive burden, survived off the meager nutrients mined by it’s few roots, and held to the granite rather than wither and fall off. I walked across a college campus in Pennsylvania and saw another oak that had been decapitated. A once-great tree had been stripped of every limb and sawed off to its trunk. Nothing left but a thick wooden pillar, not even a leaf. It had looked as good as dead. But it refused to die. It regrew a twig, and a leaf, and another, until branches grew and sprouted thick clusters of leaves that would keep growing back no matter what. And of course I thought of people. So many people are hindered in life by heavy challenges that threaten to crush them: poverty, disabilities, illness, abuse. They must choose whether they will let the boulder crush them, or if they’ll fight and grow around it, despite all odds. So many people are cut down by tragedies that steal everything they have or live for: accidents, crime, bankruptcy, broken relationships. They must choose whether they will spend the rest of their lives in a living death, or if they’ll fight and regrow despite all odds. What have you lived through that’s like growing around a crushing boulder? What have you lived through that’s like getting chopped off? Never give up. May God empower you as you grow anyway. Peter Lundell
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:17:09 +0000
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