This is a story about two little trees…
Who would not give up, even though they were not planted in fertile ground.
They were struggling to survive wondering where they belonged and needing something to live for. God told them they were to bloom where they were planted and trust in Him that He would provide.
And so He did and he gave them a little tree to love, also born out of difficult circumstances but now thriving in the new soil where it was planted.
In the meantime there was a fourth tree. Though it had been cut back several times and shrouded by the garden around it, it still emerged over the under growth, too innocent to know that is should not be thriving in such an odd place.
So the four trees came together to form a family, their bonds formed not from blood but by love and they were strengthened by their shared circumstances and trust in the Lord.
These trees started emerging from the edge of our flower garden where we cleaned out and put new landscaping fabric over all but the existing flowers a few years ago so as not to have any “volunteer” weeds or other unwanted growth forming. Steph called them “weeds”as they were still pretty small and she usually pulls the weeds out but these were no normal little “weeds”.
When I went to investigate I discovered that they were in fact, little trees. After they started to grow a little and she asked me about pulling them, I was thinking about George Strait’s little flower growing up in the middle of the sidewalk in the song “I saw God today”. The challenge that these trees have gone through just to survive where they are is incredible. We don’t take great care of the garden and have even been successful in even killing a cactus! We don’t have a green thumb between us.
With that thought in mind, I thought, you know what, those two trees were not just trees, they were me and Stephanie. We might have not have come together under the best of circumstances and the Lord knows the struggle that what we have been through would have toppled many, but we have survived and the struggle has made us a stronger couple.
Oddly enough, another new and even smaller one has bursted from underneath that same landscaping fabric on the other side of the house.
The forth and final one has fought it’s way right through the hasta at the end of the garden where the drive angles out and everyone accidentally runs over it when leaving our house. It’s been run over by cars over and over against and I’ve tried cutting it back several times now as it is right in the middle of the other plant but it just keeps on coming back.
I guess we’ll all just keep thriving where the good Lord put us and quit questioning it.
Our Family Tree.
