Growing up, in my own strength, tall and high, fighting, struggling, wanting. Then cut down, short and flat, just like all the others around me. What am I to do? I want to be tall, like those trees. How’d they do it?
So I grow again, taking in my nutrients from the world, taking it all in, just like everybody else. So we grow, big and tall, and I begin to think, “maybe, this time, I will grow tall like those trees”. Then, from behind, comes the sound, the whir, the growl, the blade, cutting all my competition down flat. It passes by, and still I stand, tall and proud. But O, horror, here it comes again, cutting, biting, throwing a cloud of my neighbors to the left of me. I am short and squat once again, and so I fall in despair I crumble, for I will never be a tree, for I am grass.
To Be a Tree
Then, from the sky, falls something small and round, I peer at it, for it is now at eye level, I see, it is an apple. The apple then speaks, it speaks of God, it tells me how to be a tree, it tells me that I must die, I must change, I must be saved. I laugh, I mock it, it rots, gone by morning.
So I grow for another week, cut down, right on time, it becomes routine. Then it stops raining, I stop growing, no more cutting, what is this all about? Then, apples, dozens of them begin falling all around me, just a few at first, but by the end of a few days, many lay on the ground, telling all the grass around how to become trees, how to stand tall in the soil of the Word of God, how to be saved from our hackable death. Most laugh at the small round objects, most just ignore them, but I, begin to listen, begin to piece it all together. I begin to see, begin to see how to be where the apples are. Soon, no more apples are on the ground, and the trees and grass all go to sleep for the long winter. I sleep, but in my dreams I see myself, tall and proud, not growing in the soil of the earth, but nourished by the Word of God and growing up, for His honor and glory, to tell all the grass beneath of His existence and their hope.
Spring comes, I grow, we all do, taller and taller, no hacker, no cutter, we grow. Then, it comes, the sound, the blade, the swoosh in the row beside. It comes, straight at me, for me, to kill me, I cannot watch, never have I grown so tall, never have I felt more like a tree! O, come rescue me, take me, forgive me for my folly, I need salvation, from God. The noise, the cut, is all around, but then, right in front of me, it stops. It comes no closer, I hear footsteps, coming closer, I feel warm fingers touching me. Nothing, what was that?
The sound, the woosh, the cut, but it does not touch me. Night comes, I am in a tall, isolated circle. Why? Dawn. Then comes a sound, quite new and different, a lower, deeper grumble. It stops beside me, a blade, cuts down and pierces! It moves around, slicing, dicing, pushing, shoving. I am lifted! I am thrown. I am bumped and jostled. Then all is still, all is done, darkness, the end surely has come. Light! Glorious light, I am placed in quite a different spot, not amid the grass, my kin, I am amid the trees! I hear, through the joyous pounding in my stem a sound, a word, “There you go little fella, let’s see what I can do with you. In a few years, with proper care and pruning, I’m sure, you too will be producing fruit for me, fruit for my glory.” I sing.
One thought on “Oh! To Be A Tree!”
Very interesting and poetic writing, very captivating! It is so great that as we learn from the Word of God we grow and like a plant we grow in His Love and tender care, the loving arms of Christ 🙂