Hello Fellow Travelers,
Though I loved our trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I was so happy to be coming home for a few weeks.
However, my delight turned to disbelief as we turned into our driveway.
I heard Treebeard saying,
“Many of these trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost forever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where there were singing groves.”1
Instead of a lush forest bordering our property, I only saw giant stumps and piles of tree limbs.
Now wood-shaven tears of the trees spilled all over our driveway.
Why?
I am not sure why our neighbor decided to clear the land. She isn’t Saruman, the White Hand. (Can you tell we rewatched the Lord of the Rings trilogy on our vacation?)
This sweet woman may have wanted to use the money from the timber to help her grandchildren pay for college, cover her own bills, or just to provide some extra cushion in her bank account. She owns the land and has a right to do whatever she wants with it.
Yet, I still mourn.
Lessons to Learn
A variety of thoughts went through my mind, some of them contradicting each other:
Sometimes the destruction happens through no fault of our own.
Sometimes evil seems to be winning and there are no good reasons at all for why something happens.
God can redeem “what the locusts have eaten” or take what someone meant to harm us and turn it into something good for us and others. (Gen 50:20; Rom 8:28)
In light of current events in the Middle East, the loss of a few trees doesn’t even compare to the kind of loss the people in that region of the world are experiencing.
And yet, God wants us to bring all of our losses to him, both the large and the small. Processing all sizes of our losses with lament before the Lord is helpful! Here is a free resource if you want some help writing your own lament.
Sometimes God has good reasons for clearing the land.
Nothing is permanent in this life.
Though I am sure there are more lessons, the one I want to concentrate on for this newsletter is how sometimes we need to be able to change our perspective.
A Different Perspective
That first week home, every time I stepped onto our driveway, all I could see was the loss of the “singing groves.” I felt myself saying, “This is just wrong!”
Gradually, my eyes are beginning to adjust to the changes.
Our place looks smaller without the neighboring trees. Yet, some of our pine trees look gigantic. I didn’t realize just how tall our trees had grown over the 25 years we have lived here.
We can now see the sunrise from our place.
The forest service is planning on clearing off the debris and hopefully replanting some seedlings. The view still is and will be beautiful. It is just different right now.
Sometimes we struggle because our lives don’t look exactly the way we thought they would at this point.
Perhaps everything turned out the way we planned, but we don’t feel the way we think we should.
Maybe, we need to ask the Father to change our perspective.
Scripture Verses
Here are a few verses to meditate on:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,
since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Cor 4:18
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
Old Lessons
This isn’t a new lesson for me. God has been trying to get me to change my perspective for a long time. I remember a certain dress rehearsal when I was directing the children’s choir at church…
A look of terror came over the older man’s face as he forgot his next line. The robot sound effect came on instead of the thunder one. Another child said lines from scene 3 during scene 6. Children covered their ears at the squeal of feedback. The microphone didn’t come on for the child who knew her solo perfectly. And where was I? I was the one in the front row with her head in her hands. “Lord,” I prayed, “I know they say that a bad dress rehearsal makes for a good performance, but PLEASE!!!”
Put on Your Kingdom Glasses
As I lay in bed that night, God told me I needed to change my perspective. Just as I could not see clearly without my contacts or glasses, I could not see that rehearsal clearly without putting on my Kingdom Glasses. With the Holy Spirit’s help, I put them on and looked at the scene again.
I saw a senior adult who was willing to look foolish to help out the children in the church. He stepped out of his comfort zone to put up with rambunctious, hyper children, and God smiled. I saw children who loved Jesus, who practiced their hearts out to give him their best. I saw children who didn’t know Jesus and saw seeds planted through the songs they sang and the messages they heard, just waiting to sprout at another time. I saw a child singing off-key but with her whole heart and the angels in heaven agreeing that there had never been a sound more beautiful.
Changing my perspective made all the difference. Where do you need to change yours?
Activities
1. Take time to look at a difficult or annoying circumstance. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you put on your Kingdom Glasses and look at it again. Journal about the situation using His perspective.
2. Often taking time every day to make a gratitude list can help us change our perspective.
3. If you are struggling, talk to a friend or a spouse. Sometimes just getting your words out can help you gain a new perspective.
Upcoming Travels
Last week, The Rest Stop podcast started a series on 1 John. I will continue that series this week, and then I think I will talk about a few other subjects before returning to John’s first epistle.
Thank you for taking this journey with me!
Christine
The background music is “Piano for Meditation” by Praded
From JRR Tolkien’s The Two Towers.
Beautiful reflection and photos, Christine! As ever so enjoyed being able to listen. When you spoke about the new perspective, and being able to have more light after the trees had gone, it reminded me of when a row of old, overgrown conifers in our tiny little back garden here were taken down to make way for a fence and a trellis, and how we missed the green. It seemed so bare. And yet seeing the sunrise and sunset, and having more light during the day was a new gift. And now more plants have grown over the upcycled trellis, and have bought such joy in a difficult year with the flowers we’ve been able to grow up them and see from the window and when we step outside.
I understand why you would mourn the loss of those trees 😢. And at the same time I see you looking for the blessings that may be hidden in this. Thank you for this reminder to allow our perspective to be changed .