Our Ash Tree is Gone

As I sat on the porch this morning, the gaping hole where our beautiful ash tree once stood filled my heart with sadness.

I tried to “Be Still” and remember “In Your presence is fullness of joy,” but my spirit felt empty.

I began reading my devotionals when a flock of squawky parrots flew overhead.  I watched them and thought, “They will never come to my home again. They will never be as close as they once were, when they’d light in the top branches of that majestic tree.”

As I watched, I saw I was not the only one feeling this loss.  Several of them, at least four, flew in place directly overhead – as if they were searching for the tree that had always been there.  The rest of the flock circled several times while those four flew in place, before they all moved on.  Soon they landed across the street in our neighbor’s backyard tree.  No longer here, but at least nearby.

Moments later I heard rustling and saw movement in the trees lining our other neighbor’s cinderblock wall.  It was the little squirrel.  Every other morning, he would run from our back deck, up onto our roof, then race over the whole house to the ash tree, where he would leap across the four-to-five-foot chasm.  Landing safely in the tree, he’d climb down and go to our neighbor’s fruit trees.  Already he had found a new route.

I, too, am finding that life goes on and that things are just different now.  I am so grateful our Lord is constant.  He never changes.  He is our firm foundation.  So, I’ll look to Him to replace what is missing, when the time is right.

Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

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(More thoughts/lessons on our Firm Foundation are still to come.)