More Alive Than We May Think

I love the water.

When Ryan and I were looking for a new home a few years ago, a property with a water view was very high on my list. I told him I didn't even care if it was a retention pond. After all, back in my heart-desert days, I was known to park by the retention pond at work and pray for long stretches of time.

Well, when it rains heavily, we do have a temporary river in the little trench behind our house, but on sunny days...not so much. (For the record, we love our home; it's okay that the water view didn't work out for us.)

But there are a few ponds scattered throughout our neighborhood, and we thoroughly enjoy them when we go on our evening walks. One of them has a tree line behind it and often makes for a beautiful sunset view if we arrive at just the right time.

Sometime last year, a wind storm took down a huge tree beside the pond. Fortunately, it fell into the pond, rather than into the home it would have hit if it had blown the other direction.

And it remains in the pond. No one has ever done anything with it. To be fair, it's a huge tree that stretches into the water, and the pond isn't the cleanest body of water in the world. I wouldn't want to wade into the deep part to cut up the fallen tree. And apparently neither do the people whose yard runs closest to that tree.

So the tree sits, with half its roots pushing straight up out of the ground and its limbs floating on the frog bog of a pond.

The other night, I paused by the pond to take a picture during our walk, and Ryan mentioned the fallen tree. I looked at and said, "Well it may be down, but it still has leaves!"

And indeed it does. There it is, all sprawled in the water, with fresh green leaves dotting every visible branch.

I stood still a bit longer, studying the tree with its spring growth.

"It's probably a faith lesson, you know," I added. "We may be fallen and uprooted, but we're not dead. Kind of appropriate for quarantine, actually."

We have fresh life.

These weeks have changed all of us, whether or not we recognize it. For some, it's been a really wonderful season of slowing, resting, evaluating, and discovery. For others, it's been a really painful season of halting, anxiety, uncertainty, and loss.

But we all have two things in common. We've all been knocked down, and we all have fresh life. Maybe you can't see the new growth in yourself just yet. Maybe all you can see is the mess of roots and the murky water.

I believe, though, that you're more alive than you may think.

I hope you can catch a glimpse of a little sprig of new life in your heart!