Secret Waters

Trees and I, we have this thing...they, well, mostly they just grow strong and tall and I, well...mostly I just watch and admire them any chance I get--often inspired by them and always awed by them. The stories their varying shapes and hues tell reminding me of a gracious Creator-God who cares about my story as well.

And evergreens...I have written about them before, but here recently, I am once again seeking to learn the lessons held amid their limbs and leaves.  

They prove to me time and again that circumstances ought not to be dictators of my happiness or success--at least the kind of success that God counts.

"The Christian is likened to the cedar of Lebanon. I have read that this tree does more than send down a few short roots into the yielding loam. It sends strong roots deep down into the earth, and strikes down farther and still farther in search of a still stronger hold. And in the fierce blast of the tempest, it stands firm, held by its network of cables beneath.

So the Christian strikes root deep into Christ. He has faith in his Redeemer. He knows in whom he believes. He is fully persuaded that Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour of sinners.... The roots of faith strike deep down. Genuine Christians, like the cedar of Lebanon, do not grow in the soft surface soil, but are rooted in God, riveted in the clefts of the mountain rocks.

If the Christian thrives and progresses at all, he must do so amid strangers to God, amid scoffing, subject to ridicule. He must stand upright like the palm tree in the desert. The sky may be as brass, the desert sand may beat about the palm tree’s roots, and pile itself in heaps about its trunk. Yet the tree lives as an evergreen, fresh and vigorous amid the burning desert sands. Remove the sand till you reach the rootlets of the palm tree, and you discover the secret of its life; it strikes down deep beneath the surface, to the secret waters hidden in the earth.

Christians indeed may be fitly represented by the palm tree. They are like Enoch; although surrounded by corrupting influences, their faith takes hold of the Unseen. They walk with God, deriving strength and grace from Him to withstand the moral pollution surrounding them. Like Daniel in the courts of Babylon, they stand pure and uncontaminated; their life is hid with Christ in God. They are virtuous in spirit amid depravity; they are true and loyal, fervent and zealous, while surrounded by infidels, hypocritical professors, godless and worldly men. Their faith and life are hid with Christ in God. Jesus is in them a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Faith, like the rootlets of the palm tree, penetrates beneath the things which are seen, drawing spiritual nourishment from the Fountain of life." (The Signs of the Times, July 8, 1886)

I have one kind and patient Teacher, who uses something as "simple" as beautiful trees to teach me lessons about His steadfastness and strength against all odds, and about how I too might find the same strength from sources unseen.

September 19th, 2013

Countless changes have come to our family in the past twelve months. Some quite expected and welcomed, others not so much, but through it all He continues to sustain and uphold and give only what's best and hands down the best gift ever this year? Baby Katie.

On the 19th, welcomed into the world four days shy of my own birthday, this September-niece of mine has birthed a whole new season for our family, and to say that we are over-the-moon excited to be aunties and uncles, grandma and parents would be quite the understatement.

Late September finds mami-dear and I flying out west to meet her, getting to spend two short weeks.

                                      

I hesitate to hold her at first, tiny drop of beauty that she is, sure I'll be clumsy and breathe too fast and one wisp of air might just make her disappear...but irresistible as she is before long I find myself waiting my turn with her again. And again.

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Holding her in the early morning stillness while parents sleep, this little bundle of heaven, I gaze at her, want to memorize her face, want these moments to last forever...

I didn't know love so fierce was possible until I sit here and feel her breathe and watch her eyelids lightly flicker against the light of the rising sun. How I wish I could keep her from all harm and all darkness and all pain and all evil and  I hope that she sleeps this peacefully and safely every day of her life. This fragile feather of a child, how she has stolen our hearts completely and irreversibly.

Life will never be the same, as sister Susan said so well.


Watching skyline outside airplane window, across country and back, I realize again the weight of our life-choices, and how other lives are shaped for better or worse by our daily decisions. As a newborn Katie is dependent on those around her for everything, and as she grows up, we are the picture of Jesus that will frame her understanding of Him. How truly weighty all we do and say is. What a responsibility. Privilege, yes. To share Jesus with others is an incredible honor...but such a huge responsibility...and more than ever I want my heart to be centered on Him so that my words and my actions might reflect that union that my heart has with His.

 

When my time on earth is done I want to be able to know that I let Jesus live in me, that I didn't stand in the way of others seeing Him, that I didn't think so highly of myself as to mislead others into a false understanding of who He is.

My heart rejoices that my niece is among the privileged few who are blessed with two godly parents, both determined to do all in their power to raise her in the love that they have found in Jesus. Lord willing, she will one day in heaven look back on her family and know that it was because of their example that she too loved Jesus enough to choose eternity with Him.

Back in Tennessee,  I find myself whispering prayers for her throughout the day, this tender life. So young, so innocent, so moldable.

Another little life to love... Please, Jesus...May she find in You her hearts home, may we as her loved ones be not a hindrance in her walk with You, but a help.