Several years ago, when I was a seminarian, I remember journaling about a pattern I noted in my life...the way the Lord often gets my attention by nudging me over and over with similar images or words. I usually know He is trying to get my attention and help me into new growth in a certain area when I suddenly find myself almost tripping over certain specific images or verses of Scripture wherever I turn, from books to conversations.
It's been happening lately, especially with the image of a tree. Not just any tree, but a green and flourishing tree with deep roots.
The odd thing (or perhaps not so odd, really) is that I truly don't feel like such a tree right now. Many circumstances in my life are combining to make me feel rather weary and parched, and I fret (and oh, I can fret with the best of them) over what can feel like a lack of fruitfulness. I have days when I'm not only not flourishing; I feel like a tiny little sapling about to get torn up by a heavy wind.
But I think during this Lenten season God is working in me a desire to become a flourishing tree, a Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17 tree. Why was I surprised when a woman in our small group this evening read out the exact verses from Jeremiah 17 that God had just snagged my attention with yesterday as I was reading...verses I went back to this afternoon? A threefold reminder:
"Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is in the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:7-8)
I'm feeling especially meditative right now about oak trees. Last fall when the leaves were turning, I would take Sarah on walks and we'd pick up different leaves and bring them home, talk about them, make crayon rubbings of them, note their different shapes. In our neighborhood, the most plenteous kinds of trees are sycamores, maples and oaks. So Sarah's gotten very good at identifying those three kinds of trees and leaves. I found myself especially in awe of oaks, and how they grow from tiny acorns. I've written a couple of acorn and oak poems in recent months.
A few weeks ago, while reading in Esther DeWaal's The Celtic Way of Prayer, I came across a writing by St. Columba. He wrote this as he was leaving his home in Ireland for exile in Scotland. In Derry, he dwelt in an grove of oaks: It is for this I love Derry,/For its smoothness, for its purity; All full of angels/Is every leaf on the oaks of Derry he wrote, and I can't get that wonderful image of oak leaf angels out of my mind.
Then yesterday, reading further in Called by a New Name: Becoming What God Has Promised (a rich book by Gerrit Scott Dawson) I dwelt for a while both on the Jeremiah 17 verse, and on Isaiah 61:3 They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to the display of his glory. And my heart cries out, make it so, Lord Jesus!
Finally, Sarah was rummaging through a drawer in her room today (she's got a newfound fascination with drawers, which means I'm needing to do some throwing away and reorganizing!) and found a small cardboard "Jesse Tree" we'd put together a couple of advent seasons ago. I have no idea how it got in that drawer instead of with the advent things in the closet, but there it was. She trotted it out to the kitchen where I was and we fit the two slotted halves together to make it stand up. I asked her if she remembered it and we started talking about what it was. At which point she smiled her lovely Sarah smile and said "It looka like an oak tree."
Okay, I get it. :-) I'm supposed to be dwelling on what it means to be a tree, and not just any tree, but one planted by the Lord, strong and flourishing, with my roots deep in the soil of his love.
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