Hope you’re all having a good week. The weather has been nice, but I do think we need some rain … the grass here is looking a bit parched! My husband’s been working overnight at a Panera Bread compnay, for the past couple of nights, so it’s been a fairly quiet week for me. I’ve caught up on the laundry, and we’re going through things to sell at our church yard sale, which is coming up this next weekend! I have lots to go through for that! Why is it so hard to decide what to get rid of?! Memories are attached to so much of what we have. Well, at least we have the memories, right?!
I’ve shared with some of you that I’ve had some pain in my hip and down my leg … on Monday the chiropractor worked me over real good, and I do feel so much better today. Sometimes it takes a few treatments to see improvement, so I was told to come back Friday. He also feels a swelling between the vertebra on my lower back, and believes it to be a cyst that swells from time to time … no pain with it though, just feels a bit odd when it is swollen. He said if it were serious, there would be pain. Elizabeth is doing better, although she’s had some adverse reactions to her treatments … she is going for another one today, so if you would, please keep her in your prayers that all would go well. We’ll hopefully be seeing her tomorrow, so I will update after that.
And finally, I’ll leave you with something I received from a friend in an e-mail recently … this photo is one I, very cautiously, took this past weekend when we were driving around in the country … funny, the things you see when you get lost on the back roads! We watched them for awhile, and they seemed to get along with each other, but I sure didn’t want to get too close! I was chased by a bull once, but he wasn’t the size of these two guys! Look at those horns!! They have a language all their own!! Lol!! Anyway, I think it fits a little with this story. Be blessed and have a wonderful day! Hugs ~ Deborah <><
Strengthened By Our Wounds
~ Steve Goodier ~
Po Bronson, in his book Why Do I Love These People (Random House, 2005), tells a true story about a magnificent elm tree. The tree was planted in the first half of the 20th Century on a farm near Beulah, Michigan (USA). It grew to be a magnificent tree.
In the 1950s, the family that owned the farm kept a bull chained to the elm. The bull paced around the tree, dragging a heavy iron chain with him, which scraped a trench in the bark about three feet off ground. The trench deepened over the years, though for whatever reason, did not kill the tree.
After some years, the family sold the farm and took their bull. They cut the chain, leaving the loop around the tree and one link hanging down. Over the years, bark slowly covered the rusting chain.
Then one year, agricultural catastrophe struck Michigan in the form of Dutch Elm Disease. It left a path of death across vast areas. All of the elms lining the road leading to the farm became infected and died. Everyone figured that old, stately elm would be next. There was no way the tree could last, between the encroaching fungus and its chain belt strangling its trunk.
The farm’s owners considered doing the safe thing: pulling it out and chopping it up into firewood before it died and blew over onto the barn in a windstorm. But they simply could not bring themselves to do it. It was as if the old tree had become a family friend. So they decided to let nature take its course. Amazingly, the tree did not die. Year after year it thrived. Nobody could understand why it was the only elm still standing in the county!
Plant pathologists from Michigan State University came out to observe the tree. They observed the scar left by the iron chain, now almost completely covered by bark and badly corroded. The plant experts decided that it was the chain that saved the elm’s life. They reasoned that the tree must have absorbed so much iron from the rusting chain, that it became immune to the fungus.
It’s said that what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Or, as Ernest Hemingway put it, “Life breaks us all, but afterwards, many of us are strongest at the broken places.”
The next time you’re in Beulah, Michigan, look for that beautiful elm. It spans 60 feet across its lush, green crown. The trunk is about 12 feet in circumference. Look for the wound made by the chain. It serves as a reminder that because of our wounds, we can have hope! Our wounds can give us resources we need to cope and survive. They can truly make us strong. ~
THE RAIN OF HIS SPIRIT
Thank Him for the storms
that break open the dry, parched ground
and allow the renewing rain of His Spirit
to pour into our lives …
It’s the weight of the wind
and the force of the storm
that make deep, sturdy roots
and strong solid trees.
that break open the dry, parched ground
and allow the renewing rain of His Spirit
to pour into our lives …
It’s the weight of the wind
and the force of the storm
that make deep, sturdy roots
and strong solid trees.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
Whose confidence is in Him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
~ Jeremiah 17:7-8 ~
Whose confidence is in Him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
~ Jeremiah 17:7-8 ~
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