Most every day since I met my husband, I at one time or another drive down the Old Jonesborough Highway. There is this magnificient willow tree that sits on the corner of Mayfield and that road. I love to watch the wind twist thru it's branches.
What most don't know is that the year I met my husband, something happened and knocked that tree down. I'm not sure what it was, I just remember driving by and commenting about how sad it is that such a beautiful tree was destroyed.
The tree laid there for quite some time. Eventually someone chopped it up, leaving only a stump. One day as I was driving past I noticed there as a sprout poking out of the broken stump. "How funny I thought, that tree is destroyed and it's still trying to grow"
I didn't think about it much until the other night when it was going to storm and the wind was blowing crazy. My husband said to me when we drove past, "look at that willow tree showing off"
That tree wasn't showing off, God was. I imagine He shakes His head often at us and our lack of faith. That tree is a living reminder. It is a standing witness of how very limited our understanding of His healing power is. We see something destroyed, broken and grieve it's loss instead of realizing that God made that tree. God made that tree and HE IS ABLE to RESTORE IT.
I have spent years a walking broken tree, feeling sorry for myself, being angry at God for allowing me to be broken. What I am learning is that yes, my tree was broken. Yes it looks from a distance a lost cause. BUT, if you will only step close enough you will see that there is an ever so tiny sprout rising out of that brokenness.
When you see me having joy when all looks lost, please know I'm thinking and hoping for the day when, when you have hardly thought of me at all, you look and say "look at Jessi showing off"
Not showing off what I can do, but rejoicing in what He has done, is doing every single moment I trust Him.
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