When I was growing up Mom planted a sapling to the west of the house visible through the living and dining room windows. The tree grew and developed a beautiful shape, and each fall, it had the most glorious leaves. It was a sugar maple tree.
My first attempt at growing one came in approximately 1996 when I lived with my first husband on Lincoln Street in the town where our children were small.
The tree did well that first year, but sometime in the winter something broke the top half of it off. Since it had been a small tree, that reduced its height by about three feet. I wondered if it would live.
Often when I mowed the yard, YHWH would talk to me. That year as leaves popped out on the broken tree, it was as if He told me “That tree is you. It appeared to be destroyed by something. It appeared to be dead. But look! Life remains, and it will still be a beautiful thing to behold.”
My thinking, as it nearly always is, was about the past, that He was telling me something about how the dregs of my past would still result in great beauty. He was, but it was a bit more complicated than what had already passed. I’d had a difficult childhood due to severe bullying and my marriage was in its death throes. I thought this was His way of telling me the good times were about to begin.
Between 2 and 4 years later, on October 3, 1999, my marriage imploded. I don’t even know if that sugar maple tree remains, but I doubt it.
The kids and I left that home on Lincoln Street and embarked on a new life far (relatively) away.
In the spring of 2022, I restarted the sugar maple dream, and it became once again a (not the but a) route through which YHWH spoke to me.
When I planted it, it was about five feet tall. That fall, it didn’t put on much of a show with its leaves.
In 2023, to my surprise, a very tall branch sprang from the middle up toward the sky. For some reason, I’d thought new branches would appear all around the tree and be equally tall.
I continued to tend the tree carefully making sure to give it water in dry seasons. In the fall, the leaves of the lower branches did transform into things of beautiful colors, but not those on the tall branch in the middle.
This year, the same thing happened. The tall branch appeared in the middle and began to leaf out. A few weeks ago, the branches on the lowest part of the tree turned orange and yellow. Now, the branches in the middle part are turning. The leaves at the very top are still green. It may be memory is not working and the very top did change last year albeit very late. We’ll see what happens this year.
YHWH spoke to me again.
The growth I’m experiencing right now (yes, growth is possible even at the age of 63 or even 103) is happening but is not yet glorious. I need to wait on my Lord and His timing and keep renewing my mind (Romans 12:2) to make my thoughts more like His and hopefully be able to hear Him more readily when He speaks to me.
Shalom shalom, my friends.
I first became acquainted with the work of Dr. Leaf at a Walk to Emmaus several years ago when a co-worker gave me a book of hers called “Who Switched Off My Brain?” Although I found the book fascinating, its subject matter was way beyond anything I was able to assimilate in that season of my life.
. Its definition is “the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury.”
JLM in Euroclydon 