God’s Message in a Redwood Tree

 

GLEN EYRIE - Garden steps

EL CAP in Winter color cprt

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Never pass up an opportunity to enjoy nature’s beauty ~ it’s the handwriting of God.” *

 

ED n Karl w giant redwood copyLast week we talked about nature speaking of God and focused on redwood trees. Those magnificent giants live hundreds of years, grow hundreds of feet into the heavens, and have roots as shallow as 5 to 10 feet. But those relatively shallow roots stretch 60, 80, even 100 feet out and intertwine, sometimes even fuse, with the roots of neighbor redwoods. They literally hold each other up. What a perfect metaphor for us.

Psalm 68:6 says:  “God sets the solitary in families” [KJV].  We’re born into families and seem to be wired to need others.  In fact infants recognize faces within hours, and are drawn to animated faces. When their adults suddenly presents a neutral facial expression, signs of distress are seen in children as young as 4 days old. **

ED climbing in JTAnd like redwoods, most of us thrive in a supportive community. This should be no surprise, I guess. Jesus has commanded “Love one another as I have loved you” [John 15:12, KJV].  We’re even told why He chose to link humans together:  Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up.   [Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, KJV]

So how do we do this?  Here are just a couple examples:

In the Bible we read that Aaron & Hur held up the arms of Moses when Amalek fought the Israelites [Exodus 17:12].

Also when David and his men were hungry, Abigail generously provided food. [1 Samuel 25:18-20]

And from life ~ Years ago my young son regularly dragged the trash can belonging to our elderly neighbor back after the garbage men left it in the road.

A wonderful mom and an awesome friend, Ellen,  who’s been fighting a life/death health struggle for years, reaches out and mentors other young mothers with great generosity and love.

Katie Davis graduated high-school and went to Uganda to help in an orphanage during a vacation ~ and stayed, adopting over a dozen girls and starting a ministry that reaches thousands.

My friend Jill just held a dying baby who’d been left alone in a utility closet after an “unsuccessful” abortion. You can read more about her and other everyday heroes in my post from Feb. 4, 2016:  Basic Training for Heroes.

Many years ago, I suffered a miscarriage; and some months later my mother died. My friend Carol called and came by often, refusing to let me collapse into the black-hole of depression that beckoned me.

When my dad was still alive, he lived thousands of miles from us. Every time I went to see him, my sister-in-law opened her home for as long as I wanted to stay. Even from afar, she helped hold me up.

Ed + redwoods COPYLike the redwood’s roots, we reach out from where we are planted. There are countless ways in which we can be part of such a network of support ~ giver and receiver. And like the myriad, intermingled roots, each of them is important and amplifies the others.

Please share your thoughts. It’s another way we can intermingle our roots!  In what way has someone been part of your “root system” and held you up?

How can you be a steadying root for someone else? 

* poster seen on Tumblr

** http://www.parentingscience.com/newborns-and-the-social-world.html

DON’T LET THE DAILY DERAIL YOUR DREAMS

Do you ever feel like your dreams get buried beneath a mountain of mundane? Your goals glide right off a cliff of daily duties? Sometimes it’s difficult to hang on to the enthusiasm. To persevere in the face of oceans of time spent apparently accomplishing nothing because you just need to do it again tomorrow.

DAVID replica, Florence

DAVID replica, Florence

Let me offer you some encouragement to rekindle your joy. Your resolve.

~ The “big dream” isn’t achieved until all the parts are connected.

~ The “big goal” isn’t reached in one giant jump, but in the accumulation of hours, days, months of small steps.

I imagine Michelangelo ate a lot of dust before David finally emerged from the marble.

 

Assumption of the Virgin by Titian

Assumption of the Virgin by Titian

 

 

I wonder if Titian ever tired of mixing pigments and dyes, or experimenting with additions of finely ground glass or metals to his paint. The magnificent David or impressive Assumption of the Virgin, masterpieces of the Renaissance, wouldn’t exist if the sculptor and painter just got tired of the repeated chiseling or swiping paint on panel.

 

 

Our family friends Bill & Lori Smith run a large, multi-faceted ministry in Papua New Guinea. Last week was Teen Camp which means Lori and a few women needed to “cook over 100 kilos of rice each day” for the 500 hungry teenagers and counselors. Over 220 pounds of rice! That’s an awful lot of boiling and stirring and pouring and scooping to do, and then repeat it 3 hours later. My mind reels.

TEEN CAMP Smiths PNG

Amazima Ministries, which reaches thousands in Uganda, recently posted:  “Yesterday we fed 1,351 children during our daily outreach in Masese, Uganda! “ Again a lot of work was done BEFORE the 1,351 children were fed.

AMAZIMAs Lunch table 1351 meals

But Katie Davis and her team choose not to see 1,351 bowls bought, and filled, and handed out. Instead they see: “1,351 faces, 1,351 names, 1,351 stories that God is writing, and we’re just grateful we get to play a small part.”

The big goals are accomplished by the accretion of small (often mundane too!) steps culminating in the outcome aimed for. And it’s easier to persist in pursuit of the goals if we keep our focus on the reason behind what we do, not on the daily ordinariness, the mind-numbing repetition.

And the REASONS?

            1. For the goal

            2. For the people

            3. For God Who asked us in the first place.

Today is a somber day of remembering that 30 years ago, 7 men and women “slipped the surly bonds of earth”* and perished in the Challenger explosion. Hardly a “big dream” like we’re talking about today. But hang on ~ it is relevant. The horrific explosion that destroyed that mighty rocket resulted from a defect in an O-ring. An O-ring!

O

A very small part compared to the huge rocket.

LEARNING TO WRITE crFor most of us the majority of days are of the mundane variety with the occasional fire-cracker, red-letter day thrown in. But masterpieces are mostly created that way.

How many hundreds of hours of feeding a baby, teaching him to hold a spoon, a pencil, a steering wheel before you see the wise, kind, loving man your son becomes?

All the small parts are important, exponentially so.

So if you feel your feet are jelly-stuck to the kitchen floor instead of soaring through the heights, if you feel buried beneath mounds of laundry or bills, can I hear your hearty cry:

“This matters! This is important. Hallelujah ~ God is weaving something                   great from this.” Because He is.

Hang your heart on this, friend. “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9

We will reap. That’s a promise. It’s just sometimes hard to wait for that “due season,” yes?

If you need more reminding, check out this video. Packs a powerful “Thank you, Mom” message. Will pour some needed balm on your tired soul. Perhaps even pour some cleansing tears.

What dream or goal feels buried to you? What is 1 thing you can do today to ease it toward fulfillment? 

*Quotation from “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., 1941, made familiar by President Ronald Reagan on January 28, 1986 as he spoke after the Challenger disaster.

Photo credit of David replica and Assumption of the Virgin ~ Wikipedia.