Are You a Choked Oak? Finding Freedom to Flourish

Hi Friends,

It's been a crazy week here, with vet and doctor appointments, meetings, concerns, worries, obstacles, essential-items breaking and not being fixed on time (like my washing machine and the bobcat!), failures, frustrations, and unexpected wrenches thrown into already too-tight plans.

I'm feeling choked! So, I thought I'd share this story of an oak tree on our property from a few years ago. It helped me to get perspective today, and hopefully it will help you too. The pictures are of the oak tree(s) today - look how it's flourishing without the poison oak around it!

THE CHOKED OAK

It was tall.  It was green.  It was bushy.  But something wasn’t right. 

I crossed my arms and looked up at the fat, green oak tree.  Beside me, my husband sighed.  I shook my head.  “I don’t want to do it.  Do you want to do it?”

“I don’t want to do it.”

I stepped back.  “Someone’s got to do it.”

“It’s an ugly job.”

“That thing will be right outside the window once we build the cabin.  We can’t have it looking like that.”

“I know.  But still . . . ”  Bryan crossed his arms over his chest.

I put my hand on my hips.

            For a moment, we both stared at the oak and didn’t say a word.  Shiny green and red leaves poked from all parts of the tree.  But they weren’t oak leaves.  Thick vines twisted around the trunk and branches.  Those didn’t belong to the oak either.

            I shivered.

            The green wasn’t the green of a healthy oak.  Instead it was a sign of poison.  A huge batch of poison oak had grown up into the tree and twined around every branch.  The tree was thick with it.  Lush and green, but with nasty poison.

            Bryan tugged on his sleeves.  “Okay, I’ll do it then.  But get the bleach ready for the laundry.”

            Four hours later, the laundry was in, Bryan was taking a cool shower, and the tree was clear.  I tromped up the hill and looked at it.  It wasn’t lush anymore.  And it wasn’t green.  Scraggly branches with a few sad leaves spread from the trunk and reached toward the sky. 

            “Ugh, it looks awful,” I murmured. 

            As I looked at the now-bare soil beneath it, I noticed there were no acorns scattered on the ground, and no little baby oaks growing around it.

            Then it struck me.  That big, strong oak was stifled by that little vine.  The oak was bigger, taller, thicker, and more established.  And yet, that small, thin, poisonous weed had nearly choked the life from it. 

            As I stood and gazed at the tree, I was reminded of Jesus’ parable from Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8.  In that story, seed fell on four different types of soil.  In the third, the seed sprouted among thorns and the life was choked out the plants, just as the poison oak had choked the oak tree.  Jesus likened the thorns to the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and desires for other things.

            If something as small as poison oak could choke the life from a big, strong oak, how much more vulnerable was I to worry and wrong desires?  After all, there are so many things in life to worry about – finances, schooling, job concerns, health, family crises.  It’s easy to allow those to twine around my mind and shove poisonous leaves through my branches until there are acorns of God’s word dropping into my daily life.  No little oaks springing up around me.  I had to ask if I was I producing any kind of crop in God’s Kingdom.  Was it growing stronger through me, or was I just barely getting by? 

            As I asked those questions, I realized that I had some poison oak in my life – worries that kept me from focusing on God, goals I was pursuing that were good but weren’t God’s plan, things that were distracting me from fully living the life God had for me.  And just like we did for the oak tree, I had to cut off the poison oak at its base and peel away all the vines from the branches of my life. 

Over the past few years, we’ve kept the poison oak away from that oak tree, and now the tree is full, healthy, and green with leaves all its own.  In time, it recovered from the stranglehold of the poison oak.  It became the beautiful tree God meant it to be.

And I know that if I, too, keep the thorns away, I can be full of the greenness of true life.  I can be all God intends me to be.  I can be a tall, strong oak in the Kingdom of God.

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; 

I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.

-Psalm 52:8

Being You - A Lesson from Tea-Time

Hi Friends,

I'll be attending a fancy tea this coming Sunday as a fundraiser for the local Confidence Pregnancy Center, so I've been thinking about what a not-fancy-tea person I am … and figuring that God's okay with that, and I can enjoy the tea party anyway.


And I was reminded of this story from a few years ago, when God showed me the importance of just being me. I hope you find this encouraging too - whether you're the fancy-tea type or not!

DANDELIONS & DAFFODILS

It wasn’t the knife.  Or the bread.  Or the cucumber, or cream cheese.  It was me.  I knew it.  But I wasn’t ready to admit it.  At least not yet.   I can do this, I told myself.  I can be the fancy-tea-party hostess, just like Debbie!

I took a deep breath, placed the knife ever so carefully over the cucumber sandwich, and pushed.  Surely this time I would make a perfect, neat triangle.  But alas, my cut was crooked, a cucumber slipped out, and a bubble of cream cheese oozed over the side of the squashed-looking bread. 

The knife clattered into the sink.  Who was I kidding, thinking I could host a fancy tea party for the church?  To me, a sandwich was either peanut butter and jelly slapped between two pieces of bread, or a fat subway picked up from the local deli counter.  I’d never even seen a cucumber sandwich until I’d been to one of Debbie’s elegant tea parties a few months before.  So, how could I possibly turn myself into a Debbie-like hostess in just a few short hours?

My husband, Bryan, walked through the kitchen door just as I retrieved the knife from the sink.  He looked from me to the stack of coin-sized cucumbers beside me.  “What in the world are you doing?” 

I straightened my shoulders.  “Making sandwiches for the high tea I’m putting on this afternoon.”

“High tea?”  His eyebrows rose.  “You?”

I pointed my knife at him.  “Don’t you dare laugh!”

He made an admirable attempt, but in the end the laugh came out anyway.  “You’re kidding, right?”

“Does it look like I’m kidding?”

His gaze wandered over the pile of misshapen sandwich wedges.  “Are they supposed to look like that?”

I picked up a baking pan and aimed.

Wisely, Bryan quick-stepped out of the room.  I could still hear him chuckling as he opened the front door and headed toward the garage.

            I tried one more sandwich – and failed – before I, too, escaped outside.  There, a blanket of purple, red, and orange wildflowers bloomed over our property.  And mixed among the colors were graceful yellow flowers that looked like daffodils.  They would be perfect for a centerpiece bouquet for my tea party.  I trotted down the steps and began to pick a few of the long-stemmed flowers.  As I did, I noticed several dandelions scattered among the other blossoms.  I picked one and twirled it in my fingers.  It was yellow like the daffodil, but as far removed in elegance as I was from Debbie. 

And yet, as my fingers brushed the soft face, I saw that there was a beauty in the dandelion too.  God created it the way it was.  And if you turned it just right, it reflected the sun’s rays. 

I tucked the blossom into a buttonhole on my shirt and gazed out over the field scattered with flowers.  Each, I noticed, was just as God made it to be.  The purple flowers didn’t pretend to be orange.  The red didn’t masquerade as purple.  And the dandelions certainly didn’t try to impersonate daffodils. 

In that moment, Ephesians 4:11-12 (NIV) came to mind:  “It was [God] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers . . . so that the body of Christ may be built up.”  It was then that I finally admitted that I’d never turn into a daffodil.  So, perhaps, I should just try to be the best dandelion I could be.  Maybe the important thing was that I, too, reflect the light of the Son who gave me life. 

            I gathered a few more flowers then returned to the house.  There, I arranged the blossoms in a vase, and, just for fun, tucked my dandelion inconspicuously into the center.  Debbie, of course, would never have a dandelion in her daffodils.  But I wasn’t Debbie.  And I didn’t need to be.  I just needed to be faithful to God and to the person he made me to be.  With a final look at my little dandelion, I headed out to the deli to pick up some less-than-fancy sandwiches for my not-so-high tea.

Don't Panic! A Horse's Lesson in Keeping Fear at Bay

Hi Friends,

Last week we were able to put on a fun horseback riding event for some kids from an apartment complex in town. We partnered with PAL (Police Activities League) and Sergeant Gray to give some great kids a great, horsie experience.  We rode in the arena, around the trail on our property, ate lunch, and talked about what our horses, Jewel and Biscuit, had taught me years ago about fear and panic.

Here's the story I shared with the kids. I thought you might be encouraged by it too!  And please pray for these kids and continuing opportunities to bring joy-through-horses to Salinas kids who won't have a chance to experience horses otherwise.

And now, here's the story I shared...


BISCUIT & THE MOUNTAIN LION

It was such a normal morning.  Quiet.  Boring, as I walked out to feed our two horses.  The air was crisp, the sun just peeking over the pines, the grass still sparkling with dew.  A regular morning.  Calm, uneventful . . . until I turned a corner and saw the horses’ pens.

            I stopped.  There, one of the heavy-gauge metal panels lay twisted and on its side.  The metal bars were bent and torn.  I ran forward. 

            The horse was gone.

            A moment later, I reached the smashed up mess that had been part of the horse pen.  Chunks of palomino fur lay on the dirt, the only remnants of the 1,300 pound gelding who had somehow crumbled the thick metal and escaped. 

            I glanced at our other horse.  She stood inside her pen trembling, her nostrils flared with fierce snorts. 

            “What’s wrong, girl?  Where’s Biscuit?”  I strove to keep the panic from my voice.

            She snorted some more, then raced around her pen and stared up into the hills. 

            I jogged around the pen to the far side.  I looked up into the hills.  And saw nothing.  I peered into the trees to the left.  Nothing.  Down the road.  Nothing. 

            Then I looked down.

            And understood.

            There, clearly pressed in the mud, were two huge paw prints.  Cat paws.  And next to them were two sets of smaller prints.  I shivered.  Mountain lions.  No wonder the horses were scared. 

            I bent lower and tracked the prints.  The cats, a mama and a couple cubs, had come down the hill and stopped fifteen feet outside the mare’s pen.  Then, according to the prints, they turned around and ran back into the brush.  They didn’t enter the pens or harm the horses.  They just stood there, then ran away.

            But that was enough for Biscuit.  Enough to drive him wild with fear.  To cause him to climb out of his pen and smash up the metal panel as he went.  Enough to make him run away from food, from shelter, from the ones who cared for him.

            We spent the rest of the day searching for our missing horse (and replacing the broken panel).  Hours later, we found Biscuit.  In the middle of the night, he had run off in a direction he’d never been before.  He’d traveled almost a mile down dangerous two-lane road, crossed it, then found his way to a barbed wire pasture.  He could have been hit, gotten cut, or been killed.  He hadn’t drunk any water, eaten anything but some snatches of grass, and had long tears where his back legs scraped against the metal fence. 

            As I led him back to his pen, to water, to food, to shelter, to safety, I thought about what drove him to escape.  Fear did that.  Simple, primitive, instinctual fear.  The mountain lion and her cubs hadn’t endangered him at all.  It was the escape that put him in real danger.

            And I wondered if fear does the same thing to me.  Something scary appears on the horizon of my life.  Maybe it doesn’t actually threaten me, or come into my space.  I just catch a whiff of it in the air, see a bit of tawny fur on the outskirts of my vision.  I see the possibilities, sense what could happen if the lion attacks.

            How easy it is in those circumstances to run, to panic, to do things that don’t make sense.  Fear is like that.  It can tempt me to hurt myself, put myself in danger, leave the place where I am fed and cared for.  Instead of trusting God’s care, I, too, want to scrape and scrabble, fend for myself, throw myself into desperate acts to get away from the thing that scares me.  And in doing so, I put myself in the worst danger of all.

            Maybe that’s why the command to not be afraid appears more than three hundred times in the Bible.  Hebrews 13:6 (NIV) tells how to respond when fear comes out of the hills and stares at us with yellow eyes.  It says, “So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.’"

            So, instead scrambling out of the fences in our lives and running down dangerous roads to unknown pastures, God calls us to stay calm, trust Him, and remain in his will.  He calls us not to fear the mountain lions, but to trust in the boundaries he places around us.

Good Friday Reflection: Where is God in the Darkness?

Hi Friends,


This week, as we experience Good Friday and await the wonder of Easter morning, I wanted to share with you some thoughts from Wrestling with Wonder about what is happening in the darkness when all hope seems lost.

For those who are facing darkness-when-it-should-be-light in some area of life, I hope this will bring hope and encouragement.

As I always say, in the darkness God does His most intimate work.

Darkness and the Curtain 

            When Jesus was on the cross, darkness covered the land for three hours, from noon until three in the afternoon. Commentators argue about what the darkness symbolized…But for those who have knelt in their own darkness, the arguments don’t matter. For Mary, for us, we care little what the darkness symbolizes. It only matters that it is there, that we must live through it, live in it. We know that darkness means confusion and fear, sorrow and loneliness. This is a time when we can’t see, we don’t understand. It’s when things are not as they should be, when life is turned upside down and nothing makes sense.

            That is the kind of backwards, doesn’t-make-sense, where-are-you-God moment that Mary and everyone around her experienced.

            I’ve experienced it too. You probably have as well. We’ve been to the place where we can’t seem to see any light at all. She couldn’t see Jesus. We can’t see God. There were no comforting visions; there were no glimpses of God’s light. She could do nothing but wait. We can do nothing but trust ... or not. We choose.

            Because for us, like Mary, we often don’t know what is happening, what God is doing when we can’t see him.

            Luke 23:44-45 tells us, “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.”

            Something was happening in the darkness.

            Far away from where Mary was standing (or sitting or kneeling) something important was happening in the temple. In the darkness, the curtain that separated the people from the Holy of Holies was being torn in two. Luke clearly links the two events in the text.

            God is in the darkness. He is working. He is tearing the veil.

            And this veil that was ripped asunder was no puny bit of muslin. It was a whole handbreadth thick. It was forty cubits long and twenty wide. It did not tear easily.

            Woven from costly yarns from Babylon, the curtain blocked access to the Holy of Holies where the inner altar stood.  Only once a year would the high priest enter through the curtain to make an offering for his sins and the sins of the people. That’s how unapproachable, how separate, God was to the people.

            But not forever.  Because in the darkness, God was doing a new thing.

            So what does it truly mean that God tears the veil?

            In general, culturally then and now, the purpose of a veil is to cover, to separate. Brides wear veils as they walk down the aisle so the groom can’t see them. Middle Eastern women wear veils to hide their faces from men.

            This veil, this curtain, was to separate a holy God from a sinful people. But while Mary sat in the blackness, unable to see Jesus, unable to see God, God rent that veil in two. He removed the barrier. And he did it in the darkness.

            So what does this tell us about our God? It says that no matter how deep our darkness, no matter the horror we face in it, God is there. He is working. He is, in fact, doing his most intimate work. God rends the curtain and reveals himself, takes down barriers, does a new thing, in our darkest moments. The curtains in your soul may be thick. They may be difficult to tear away. But our God knows how to rip through the thickest of veils. He has done it before. He will do it again. For you.

            So what do we do when we face the darkness? Like Mary, we sit at the foot of the cross. We don’t panic. We don’t run away. Instead, we stay there, sit quietly, and let God work even though we can’t see him.

            Now, because of Christ, because of what he did on the cross for us, darkness is no longer the place where evil has its way. It is not the devil’s realm. Instead, it has become the place where God works, where he comes near to us in new ways.

            God is God, even in our darkness.

            There he loves us. There he fulfills his purposes. There the promises of the Messiah come true because he is removing the separation between God and man. Between you and the God who loves you.

            He is near us in the dark. He is opening the Most Holy Place.

            We must only trust, even when we cannot see.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, 

for he who promised is faithful. 

Hebrews 10:19-23