|
|
The Long Walk 2010
|
Long Walk learning from a tree, Hudsonville, MI
|
|
I started out taking a walk along the river. Being hot and humid and in the woods, I had plenty of mosquitoes to keep me company. I guess I’m happy for the bats, they won’t go hungry.
I found a picnic table in the shade and noticed the tree nearby. It looked like it lost a lot of limbs, most of one side. Maybe it was struck by lightning. Yet it was tall and still had lots of leaves. It was very strong, but it had lots of scars It reminded me of life. We suffer loss in various ways; it hurts a lot at the time. Yet as time goes on we grow, we learn, we even send out new shoots by trying new things or new friendships. The tree was firmly rooted, as we need to be, in Christ. I’ve wrestled with why some losses happen. Why God protects sometimes and not other times. I can’t understand it.
I just have to trust that God knows what he’s doing and that I need to hold on to him, stay in the Word and pray -- get strength. Doubting him will cause me to wither.
Today Psalm 3 gave me that strength.
“But you are a shield around me Lord
you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. . .
I like down in sleep;
I wake again because the Lord sustains me."
|
|
Ellen Alderink 07/07/2010 21:52 |
|
| |
Craig from Illinois
|
07/07/2010 22:20 |
I saw a tree with a "tumor" shaped growth on its side. Similar thoughts to yours came to my mind also.
|
| |
Jenna in Austin
|
07/07/2010 23:21 |
Oh yeah, trust is so so important and so hard to do sometimes...
|
| |
April 'nvcatlover'
|
07/07/2010 23:38 |
Ellen, I love your honesty and willingness to share your feelings with us. It sounds like God spoke to you thru that tree and the scars that life can leave on us. God loves you with an everlasting love that never changes friend. God Bless you, April
|
| |
Craig from Illinois
|
07/08/2010 07:31 |
Wonderful sketch drawing of the tree! So cool!
|
| |
Calico
|
07/08/2010 10:22 |
Wonderful, Ellen,
It sounds like the tree has a lot of resonance with your personal world; how wonderful to hear of the ways in which you were spoken to.
Recently I've been pondering my own "doubts;" not things that are necessarily outright denials, but smaller, more subtle things, about which God talked with me about yesterday. I will put a post up too, sharing that.
You did the tree sketch on the Flickr account?
Blessings,
Tom
|
| |
Phyllis in Ukraine
|
07/11/2010 06:37 |
Was the tree sketch on Flickr yours? It is beautiful!
|
|
