When Blessings Look Like Cherry Trees. UNITE

Have you ever been somewhere and flashed back in time?  Seeing little glimpses of film-like pictures in your mind of what used to be?

I curl in a hammock on our property, new foster baby in arms cuddling close.  My seven-year old hammock-surfing, a new game we invented for a little fun while passing time.

The sun bright, shining.  All seeming perfect, in this place so close to heaven.  This quiet retreat that somehow always feeling just like home.

And in the middle of our laughter, of our stomach curled, giggling, poking each other hysterics, I remember another tree I loved so long ago.

And isn’t it when lightness, laughter, and joy enters, that God’s blessings become clearer, our “want-more mentalities” dissolves completely, and God reveals to us how much we have already been given?

I was ten, maybe. On our city lot.  A huge cherry tree stood as if declaring to my slowly closing in cement methodology…there is life growing somewhere yet. 

And I loved this tree…no really, loved this tree.  In the darkness of the shadows that haunted me day and night, it was the only place in the world I felt safe.

Curled tight on a piece of plywood, high up in the tree, surrounded by birds coming to peck at the cherry’s gathering.  High enough from people, where I could “keep watch” for predators lurking below, quietly staring up at the unadulterated puffy white clouds…as I dreamed of a better world.

I never worried, or had nightmares there.  I only imagined good things up in that unshakable wood force-field I knew as, “my cherry tree”.

Yes, I guess that’s where I learned to first talk to God; my secrets heard, fears finally silenced?  How many peaceful rests did I have hidden behind the thick branches, tucked safe in this old wood cherry I loved?

It was the place I remember carrying up a huge, lost, long haired kitty.  I thought for sure she was pregnant, so I grabbed a box and hid her for days up in my favorite place, my tree.  Who would want her?  Who could help her?  What would my mom say if she saw the depraved state of a cat who wandered homeless in the darkest alleys?

Days later, we took her to a vet.  “Mommy cat” was a tom.  He wasn’t pregnant at all, but became a faithful friend…and a rather good mouse hunter.

Yes, all was well until one day I heard loud noises in the back yard.  I ran to the thick glass window where I froze as I saw my tall leaved sanctuary falling.  In pieces.  Slowly.

Eyes popped, breathe stopped, tears streaked my face when I heard the chain-saw, and saw a strange man murdering the fortress I loved so much.  I banged the window with my fists, but no body heard.  The chains cutting drowning my cries, ignoring these tears. Finally, I curled up in a fetal position, on the white spray painted stiff wicker, fake wood furniture of my parents.

It was there I wept long and hard. It is there I grieved the loss of the sanctuary I loved so much. 

Still somewhere deep, I asked questions like…Did no one understand how I loved this tree?  Could no one see my rage, anger, hurt, betrayal, frustration?  How could both my parents be standing by that beautiful God-creation….watching it fall with no remorse?

And sometimes tiny, human hands can’t grip the limbs of our lives dropping.  Sometimes tiny voices, voices like ours, can’t possibly silence the travesties happening all around us.

My mom finally came inside.  There she very logically tried to remind me why we were cutting down the tree.  We were going to have a cement patio, a carport, and a deck replacing that one most beautiful piece of creation that captures all my hopes and dreams.  I could care less.

I wanted to run down, grab the branches covered in sawdust, kiss them, hug them…and let them bleed on me…like my heart had bled on them.

But in the end?  As the sun faded on my memories, heartbreak, and frustrations…There was nothing.  No memory, no picture, no wood fortress with walls and open skies to keep me…protecting me from my hurtful and confusing childhood.

And sometimes when the one “home” you have resurrected in your mind has been sawed up, taken…we realize earthly things can’t never save us.  And it is then we grasp for another to be our Savior.  

It was that summer, Jesus found me, in a big way.  At summer camp.

And today, while swinging, laughing, and grabbing a wall-less life that doesn’t need plywood to hide me, or lonely abandoned cats to keep me company…My old cherry tree comes flashing to my mind.

“I had a cherry tree like this one when I was little” I nod at the thick trunk to my seven year-old daughter laughing while wildly swinging.

“Really?  You did mommy?”  I hear her question.  Her world wanting a piece of mine. Her story needing a connection point intertwining us…like I had once longed for so long ago.  

She sees the story behind my eyes as I stare longingly at the cherry tree replicating childhood memories…And then it struck me.  We don’t just have one cherry tree…but two.  Just like the one cut that sad day at the brink of my double-digit birthday….

And where cement came and paved the place where I used to hide and sit and dream…God has now given us five acres of almost completely green grass spread out like endless grace as far as we can see.
  
And I gasp.

This once heartbroken orphaned-spirit, now sits holds a true orphan (our foster child).  This child in me, once feeling robbed, stolen from, betrayed….now gets to bask in the shade of this redemption God has place before my very eyes.

Yet, we have lived here five years…and I wonder why I never saw the goodness of God until now.  Why had I not seen this double blessing?  Was I wallowing, striving, dreaming too much to stop and see these God-gifts right in front of my very own eyes?

And sometimes joy, gratitude and blessings-counting, really does open God-opportunities for God to speak to us, show us…He won’t leave us empty….even when what we value crumbles like sawdust before our very own eyes.

Yes, I am grown with children now, and I am not going to lie, like my mom, I want a clean paved drive-way instead of gravel…and a big deck, like the one my parents build so long ago….

But, these two cherry trees remind me of another time, when a little girl stood at the glass window and cried.  And I will never cut them down.  Not ever. These are God’s promise to my own life, to our family.  These are the soldiers that stand with such history. Our future.  My daughters tomorrow, closely held, memory makers.

Yes, I will leave them, even if just to remind me…

Sometimes God’s blessings can look crooked, weary, moss ridden, and withering…but they are absolutely, undoubtedly blessings….if we look at them with right eyes.  

I swing in the sun of this wall-less world I now live in. Thirty years later, filled with praise and surrender to this God who takes away…but also redeems us.  And I thank God how He truly does see the hurting, care for the broken, redeem those lost in a world filled with questions…

The lost, now caring for orphans.  The treeless one, now swinging in His perfect time and goodness.   

Carried by two cherry trees as if resting in the arms of God himself…

Yes, sometimes memories come flashing back.  But, even memories can shine glimpses of the grace of God…

If we let them.

**  I just wanted to share this story, not to declare God’s goodness always comes with material possessions, but so that you, I…we can all can be “grace-hunters”…children looking for God’s goodness, whether our favorite place or person has just been sawed from us, or whether we are in a season of plenty, rest, and abundance.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  And He is a redeeming God!  Not just for me…but for you!

What has God redeemed in your life lately?  Would you be so bold as to share with us in the comments below?