Stumps

The trees are gone. Six of them. Cut down to save a house that will never belong to me from potential damage. Early morning light comes through my front window without being filtered through a canopy of leaves--harsh and without the gentle warmth that I have appreciated since moving here. The front of the house is bare. Naked and exposed. Stripped. The towering trees in the backyard that once beckoned me outdoors to sit in their shade to listen to their magical duets with the wind are silent now. Reduced to battered stumps and shredded piles of mulch. The landscape is scarred with their remains. My once beautiful retreat is now ugly with their decaying bodies. I am strangely grieved.

The day they came down, I walked the expanse of our backyard surveying the damage--I ran hands over the stumps and lingered long trying to find the rings to see their lifelines. To find beauty in the midst of ruin. But I couldn't clearly see the rings due to the scars the chainsaws left. No beauty to be found. Just loss.

I don't understand why this has affected me so. I am reminding myself of Jonah grieving over a plant that he didn't cause to grow instead of the people of Ninevah. I am frustrated by my lack of perspective. Perhaps I have put too much stock in my surroundings to bring me joy and God is pruning my heart once again along with the trees in this yard. Whatever the reason, my grief lashes out like the winds that first did damage to these trees outside. I feel battered, stripped and scarred.

Perhaps I linger too long over the stumps of my life. I look too much inwardly and trace and retrace the lifelines that have been scarred by loss. Perhaps I, myself, have picked at scabs long since healed by the tender Gardener who prunes my heart and I make myself bleed over again. Instead of seeing loss, I should look for the beauty in those scars because they are evidence that the Lord's loving hand was in the healing. Touched by God On High.

 Oh that I would trust Him more to know what true beauty is and how to tend my life in order to produce it. And taking my chin in His gentle hand, He would lift my face from the stumps and help me to see the landscape He is fashioning even while having to remove trees in the way of the better view.