May 1, 2021 – The Flowering Pear tree

Today was such a beautiful day outside.  I love the sunshine and warmth and being outside definitely helps me feel close to my angel boy.  I’m always grateful for that.

As I was sitting in front of our house cooling down from my 7-mile training run this afternoon, I noticed three little trees our neighbor across the street planted last year (or maybe it was two years ago – the last year is kind of a blur, for all of us I think).  As I looked at my neighbor’s young trees, I recognized them as the same type of tree that is planted throughout our neighborhood called a Flowering Pear.  Apparently they do very well in this area, and they’re pretty much everywhere, including in our next-door neighbor’s yard as well.  They actually have two that have grown quite large and provide great shade to our yard, too. 

For some reason as I looked at my across-the-street neighbor’s little trees, and then thought of the potential they have to become like my next-door neighbor’s giant trees, I couldn’t help think about life and each of our individual journeys.  In nearly everything we start as little trees and then, over time, grow to be the full and flowering trees we have the potential to become.  It doesn’t happen overnight – our neighbor’s trees have been growing for nearly twenty years – but it does happen.  Each of us has the potential within us to become something amazing, just like these trees.  From tiny seeds like the trees, from the moment we’re born we literally have everything already in us to become awesome.  But it takes time.  And for impatient people like me, I wish it happened overnight.  I want to be the big tree today, not the still-growing tiny tree tomorrow and the day after that.

So then I thought about how lucky these little trees are to not have the human reasoning that would cause them to compare themselves to the further-progressed trees across the street.  They aren’t worried that they’re not as big as the other trees. They just focus on growing themselves. No comparison – only growth. I wish I was like these trees, because I think I do the comparison thing a lot.  I look at my progress in something, like my grief lately, and I compare it to others who may have been “growing” in their journey longer.  I’m not sure why it’s so easy to do.  But then I see something like these trees and I’m reminded just how important it is to take my time in growth (and in grief) instead of expecting to be fully-grown right now. 

Every tree is at a different stage in its journey, but every tree is awesome in its own right.  And every tree has the potential to become a big, beautiful tree, if it’s given the water and sun it needs to do so.  Just wishing for the tree to grow isn’t enough – it has to be watered and nurtured.  Getting upset at the tree for not growing faster doesn’t do any good either.  I need to remember those lessons in my own life, and especially on this journey of grief. 

Also, I realized it’s important to remember that every big tree was once a little tree.  The big trees in my next-door neighbor’s yard started as small trees like those in my across-the-street neighbor’s yard.  It can be easy to look at the big trees and admire their beauty and magnitude, without remembering the journey it took for them to become what they are.  They started as tiny seeds – seeds that were planted and buried and had to use everything in them to burst through the ground and grow and grow.  Surely it wasn’t an easy process, and it took a lot of time, but now it’s a glorious tree that brings shade and beauty to the neighborhood.  I want my life to be like that.  I don’t want to focus on the fact that I may be small in my journey now, but on the potential I have to become glorious and beautiful like my neighbor’s Flowering Pear tree.  I don’t want to worry that I’m not growing as fast as someone else, because all growth starts somewhere small.  I want to be able to look back someday when I’m basking in the beauty of what the journey has helped me become, and remember the stretching and growing and ground-breaking effort it took that I can hopefully be proud of. 

Right now I feel like the tiny trees across the street.  But I have hope and faith that in time, I can become the big, beautiful trees of my neighbor next door.  I know I can’t do it alone, so I’m grateful to have wonderful friends and family who bless my life with their sunshine and light, and a loving Savior who provides the living water that gives me hope in the future.  I’m also grateful to have a sweet little “gardening angel” (my attempt at a clever spin on a guardian angel for this analogy) who watches over his mama and encourages me to grow.  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do it without him, and I’m really grateful that in part I can do it for him.