Day Twenty: Improving Ground

And because we know that what we sow
 does not come to life unless it dies -1 Cor 15:37

        I managed to ignore the stick in the ground all winter. In the spring, even when the other trees all around it were budding and growing thick shawls of green the stick that stuck in the ground without a bud on it never bothered me. Even though this was the tree my late husband's family planted in his memory three years ago,  I had convinced myself , "It was just a tree." Even though we had dug it up when we sold the house we bought together and replanted it at our new home last spring, I had convinced myself, "It was just a tree." I knew it had little chance of surviving such a difficult move. "It was just a tree" until the day I noticed something on it's branch, what was that I wondered, "A bud?" It was a bud. The tree was budding, it survived. Within a few weeks it was more than a stick, it was a tree with green leaves on it. Within a few weeks it was more than a tree, it was the center of a wonderful memorial garden for my husband.
   For three years, the tree bloomed with a larger and larger bouquet of green leaves. Although always the last tree to bud in the spring, sort of like my husband, always late. The tree become the center of celebrating how much his life meant to us. Last Christmas the kids decorated the tree with special ornaments they bought for him, each with its special significance to one of his children. It has been filled with chimes they have collected in his memory. As special as the tree has become, when I heard the news that the storm had taken out the tree, I told myself, "It's just a tree." It is not like my husband was taken out by the storm, "It's just a tree."

     The kids and I tried to detach our emotions for our beloved husband and father, from this tree. Although we were sad when we saw the tree snapped in half about a foot off the ground, we knew in our hearts it wasn't another loss of a person but just a tree. With or without the tree, we still miss him. I think even my father-in-law was sad to hear about the tree. I think he was happy when he learned that the tree got moved to the new property and survived. There was something about that tree that touched everyones' hearts. He said we should check the tree and see if had grown any saplings around it.

     So I quickly ran out to check, and there around the base of the tree was abundant new life. Within hours of finding the saplings, a new garden began to appear around the fallen tree. The kids brought decorated stones and we put up a new border and planted new flowers. Where there was once sadness and yes a sense of loss, there was new hope and encouragement that someone was looking out for even our precious memories.

    "There was a garden in the place where He was crucified," John 19:41. In the same place where their was death, there was life. In the same place where there were feelings of hopelessness, there was the Hope of the World. Where there is death, there is life.
     What kind of tender shoots have you seen growing up from dead wood?
STUDY GUIDE:
 Follow along in JOHN: 90 Days with the Beloved Disciple by Beth Moore pages 93-96
 Read John 19: 38-42
 Answer the questions in your study guide.
 Share a brief highlight or two from your thoughts and answers in a comment posted to the group. (Read guidelines and cautions posted August 1, 2010 before you post).
 Read the comments of others and share your thoughts and encouragement with them by replying to their comments. Identify which post you are responding to by addressing them and their subject or pasting a brief portion of their reply at the start of your post.

PRAY WITH ME:
Lord, we know that we would not be who we are or as close to you as we are today if it were not for the losses in our lives. Do not leave us in our grief but grow us up out of it into purposeful men and women of faith. You are our abundance in life and our new life in death. In Jesus Name, Amen.