We’re looking through photos, my children and I, and I ran across this one I took in Tulsa, Oklahoma, December 2007. Not the first, nor the last ice storm to do such damage.
When Mom and Dad moved into the home they bought in the 1950's there was a similar ice storm that winter in Tulsa. I remember how beautiful it looked at night with lights reflecting in shimmers as a neighbor and I pretended we were skating. As I grew older, I realized what damage the weight of ice can do.
Small drops of water adhering to surfaces, building one right after the other when the temperature’s right.
The broken limbs shown in my sister-in-law’s yard, above, shows them snapped at tension points. All across Tulsa county – old trees, young trees, fruit trees, nut trees. I cried at the pecan grove I had known from childhood, broken. The limbs appeared as drooping arms from broken shoulders, damaged goods.
Our burdens build just as those of the ice-laden trees – a little at a time, small things attaching, collecting others along the way. Some are sins we commit, some are good deeds left undone. Each builds on another, thickening, weighting us down. There are days our burdens are so heavy we don’t want to face the following days. He offers us so much more than just hope. He tells us how we can change. We can trade our burdens for His.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:30 KJV)
Sounds good? What about those broken limbs? They cannot be reattached. Just hanging there in the spring leaves the tree wounded, seeping. It can’t be left that way, just as we can’t be left wounded from our burdens, even when He has traded ours for His. We need to have more waiting for us – and He has provided healing. David experienced spiritual healing and wrote about it for us:
O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. (Psalms 30:2 KJV)
He heals. There will be scars. There will be consequences that we must face, but He will be there with us – when we ask Him to.
I’ve made my choice, and I give thanks to Him every day, for I have believed His word:
As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me. (Psalms 55:16 KJV)
Oh amen such a great read for today, yes I too have great scars of sin before salvation, we may have forgiveness but we forever have the scars it leaves.
ReplyDeleteThat Ice storm reminds me the 9th of April 1961 the 8th I was hanging all my new diapers on the line to be clean for the new baby; the 9th he was born, and the greatest ice storm of Michigan's history also blew in, all the trees were just hanging like your photo, so many limbs were broken that day, our little Elm tree out front never was the same again, it grew, but not as gorgeous as it had been.
Some times we never recover from great sin in our life, God is quick to forgive but at times we do not forgive our self and others are quick to remind us also.