The Splintered Tree
Years ago, after a storm in the mountains, I walked through the damp, needle-strewn soil and saw the damage that had been exacted by the lightning the night before. I saw a tree blasted apart and immediately thought of an aspect of my life.
I’d invested years of my life in a relationship. I wasn’t perfect in it, but I was sacrificial. Not everyone you love loves you back. Not everyone you bless wants to bless you.
But as sudden as that crack of light last night, I knew it was over. The Lord had spoken. I was relieved, I admit that. But I was left feeling like the tree, wrenched apart. I knew it couldn’t be put back together. Sometimes in the life of a Christian, there is a John Mark with whom you can be reconciled, and there may be an Alexander the metalworker, with whom you can't.
I picked up a shard of the tree, and kept it for many years. It was a symbol to me of an event that changed my life. Like the Israelites who took stones from the middle of what was a raging, flood-engulfed riverbed, I looked at it often. It became a memorial to me.
However, the photo below is not of that tree, nor of that shard.
That’s because I decided to throw away the splintered wood, the memorial of that pain, as I forgave.
Now, not even the memory has all those sharp edges. Forgiveness rescued me from my hurt, and the Lord rescued me from the hurter.
(photo courtesy of air-and-space.com)
