Grace for the Dormant Season
/ALL THE TREES ARE DEAD
Last year, my daughter spent her fall semester at Palm Beach Atlantic University. She was a fifteen-minute walk from the ocean. G loves nothing more than the sun on her face and sand between her toes. She was in her happy place.
As the semester drew to a close, she decided, for multiple reasons, to return home to Ohio. And she wasn’t happy about it. “I don’t want to come back to Ohio. All the trees are dead there!” We laughed. We knew the trees weren’t dead. Just dormant.
A few days later, I went for an evening walk. The cold December air stung my cheeks. I lifted my head and looked at the spiny silhouettes of winter trees against the sunset sky. “All the trees are dead,” I thought and laughed out loud.
She has a point. They certainly look dead. They aren’t blooming with flowers like they do in the spring, or providing a canopy of green as in summer. Every last brightly colored leaf has fallen to the earth and what remains looks like mere skeletons.
But deep inside, hidden from sight, life is pulsing through wooden veins. Life that will show itself in spring, when tiny buds bloom into flowers. Summer will come, and leaves will again cover these barren branches.
We don’t criticize the trees for going through seasons. We don’t berate them mid-winter for not bearing fruit. We wait. We watch with expectation. We accept seasons as part of the rhythm of tree life.
Why don’t we have the same grace for ourselves? We want to see evidence of our faith - All. The. Time. We want experiences and feelings that display a bold and vibrant walk with God. We want leaves and flowers. But sometimes what we have are only bare branches.
We want experiences and feelings that display a bold and vibrant walk with God. We want leaves and flowers. But sometimes what we have are only bare branches.
Is that you right now? Are you wanting to see evidence? A work of God that is visible to the naked eye? Are you frustrated that you aren’t seeing the fruit you so desperately crave?
I want to encourage you with a small phrase tucked quietly in Psalm 1: “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on His law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season…” (Psalm 1:1-3 NIV, emphasis added).
We aren’t too different from trees, you and I. The writers of scripture make the comparison more than once. Psalm 1 tells us that the righteous person brings forth fruit in season. Not all the time.
THE BEAUTY OF CHANGING SEASONS
Some seasons are for bearing fruit, and some are for deep inner work that no one sees but the Lord. This work is just as vital. Maybe more so than the flowers and leaves that display themselves for the world to see. After all, flowers fade and leaves fall to the ground. But the deep inner work abides. It doesn’t dry up or blow away with changing seasons.
If I had my way, I’d move to Florida* with my daughter and live where the trees are always green. But honestly, here in Ohio, there’s a different kind of beauty. A beauty that only comes when winter lifts its heavy cloak and spring arrives, bringing with it the evidence of life that’s been surging inside, awaiting its time to bloom.
Bear in mind the wise words of Ecclesiastes 3:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecc 1:1-8 (NIV)
And don’t forget, a time to bloom, and a time to be dormant.
*In a crazy turn of events, we actually moved to Florida a few months after I wrote this last December!