Another Ode to Trees

It’s only been a few months since I last wrote about trees [check out my Ode to Teachability], but here I am again. It must be something about the way the trees stand and endure and change that catches my eye. Or maybe it’s my fascination with Psalm 1 that is on repeat in my head: 

“[Those who delight in the Lord] are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in season and whose leaves do not wither - whatever they do prospers.” (Psalm 1:3) 

Either way, here we are again. And this time it’s those beautiful bright orange and red leaves that I know are likely catching all of your eyes as well. This season draws so much attention to trees. 

And it is something that what we find most beautiful is their dying, isn’t it? 

Really, though, a tree budding or full-bloom is wonderful (and we all enjoy her shade), and a tree that stands naked covered with fresh snowflakes is also a sight to behold… 

But there is no beauty quite like our fall trees. 

And it hit me, over the weekend, that if their dying is beautiful, so can mine be too. 

I’m not dying (for the record… at least that I’m aware of), but I am in a season of great sacrifice and of death to myself. 

The last several months have been agonizing with our middle daughter. We don’t know what’s changing in her chemistry or what is happening internally, but we know that our strong-willed child has changed significantly in recent months and we’ve found ourselves desperate and bewildered more times than I can count. The beginning of the new school year has brought us to tears almost daily and has thrown our family dynamics into serious gridlock. 

If you want to know what most feels like death to a mom, it is to see her child suffer. 

Exasperated, filled with sorrow and confusion, desperate for answers, and so exhausted is how I finish every day. It is a season of sacrifice as we give all we’ve got to help our rainbow baby blossom again. 

And there it is - isn’t it? 

Those fall leaves in all their colored glory, hail to us as they die, that blossoming anew is coming. 

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Every tear bottled up to water the growth of something new. 

I know it sounds so cliche. And I’m over the cliches too - the euthanizing of our pain with false promises. 

We cannot avoid pain, we cannot skip sacrifice, we cannot glorify grief… These things are meant to be felt, meant to be held, meant to do something within us, meant to be walked through, but the wrestle is there  — the temptation of our humanity to just press “fast forward” and get back to the blossoming. We are drawn to vibrancy, to the green and flowering places of our lives. 

But lest we forget, the trees remind us that our dying is beautiful too. 

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So, when I’m overwhelmed and angry and sorrow-filled, I go outside to take a breather, and what I breathe in for now is the sight of this big orange-leafed tree outside my door. She towers over the others and captures all of my attention. And she hails to me the promise that blossoming anew is coming, but for now… there’s beauty right here in the dying too. 

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You’re not alone. If you’re in a season of great sorrow and dying, please reach out <3