I love them!
All kinds! The variety seems endless.
When I was little, I had a swing in a pear tree at Lillie Mae’s house where we lived in an apartment in part of her home. I went out to the tree and looked at it carefully before beginning to swing. I carefully sat on the small wooden plank and grasped the rope sides with my chubby little hands. Then the awesome feeling of flying began as I pushed off and soared up and down and thought my little feet would surely touch the blue sky powdered with white clouds. My heart soared, my grip tightened, and higher and higher I went!
I had been told that the tree was a “sinking pear tree.” Now, I didn’t know exactly what that was. I knew what sinking meant, to go down. I also knew what a pear tree was; it grew pears on it. So I always approached the wonderful tree with caution, just in case it would begin to sink down, down, down with me swinging on it.
When I went high, so high!, I felt like I was touching God’s heaven. I often wished I could write God a note, ask Him a question, or tell Him something important and I could “swing” my note up to Him! Then maybe if I looked very carefully around on the ground, I could find a note back from Him! How amazing and wonderful that would be! A note from Heaven!
Growing into older childhood, I still loved trees and began climbing them with careful skill. If remember pine trees growing around a lovely little pond. I judged the limbs’ distance from each other and made my climb all the way up to the top! There I hung on when the wind blew and my treetop began to sway in time to the winds whistling song. Back and forth, side to side, I rode the treetop to the clouds! I felt so free, so happy, so detached from all the world’s troubles as I held on and smelled the crisp pine scent as I rode the wind.
Trees became important in our neighborhood games of boys against girls in mock battle. We girls took refuge in a huge tree that conveniently had a large limb break off at the trunk and make a ladder all the way to the ground. Up we went, hiding from the boys who were on their way. We had been eating watermelon together and took some of the juicy fruit with us up into our hideout in the limbs. These became messy missiles we hurled at the boys until they retreated leaving us winning the battle of the day!
So when I learned in church about God, life and trees, it all made sense to me.
“He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:8)
Lord, thank you for trees.
Help me to bear fruit of faith and goodness.
And thank you, God, for the “notes” you sent in the Bible!
