Bent and Tangled

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement
Bent and Tangled

The tree looked dead. A passerby wouldn’t find it attractive. Its trunk leaned to the side. Its bare branches stabbed the air at odd angles to each other. A couple of taller branches looked stunted from some injury. Further away in the parking lot, other trees attracted admiration with gorgeous blossoms. Without leaves, I couldn’t identify the kind of tree this straggly one was. I never learned enough about tree bark to recognize which belonged to what species. When I looked closely at the tangled limbs, I could barely discern the slight presence of small swellings along the ends of some branches. Perhaps, it wasn’t a dead tree after all. Those little buds might eventually fill in the branches with leaves. There it stood as if awaiting the adornment of leaves to give it a cover and justify its existence.

Do we sometimes feel like that leaning tree with its unkept hairdo? Sometimes life makes us feel unattractive, bent with cares, and in need of a good combing! Just like a tree springs forth in the spring with little green buds that turn into leaves and provides shade for those who stand under it, so can we spring forth in any season no matter how bent we feel, or how bare of any possibility. The miracle of Spring is available to us all year long. We don’t require our days to lengthen or a certain amount of sunshine to make us burst forth and become a source of emotional shade to those around us. We can fix our eyes and emotions on the Son of God and ask for the resurrection of our usefulness, regardless of our age or our wellbeing. If we ask, God will show us how He can use us. Perhaps it is to smile and wave at others or call out a welcoming greeting to the discouraged. Perhaps it is to give some of our resources to the down-trodden. Perhaps it is to give encouragement out of what we have learned thus far in life. Perhaps we are simply to pray. We may never know on this earth when we have inspired, encouraged, or helped; but we can know that God isn’t through with us when we have breath to pray or merely to think our prayers.