When we were looking for a house 5 years ago we had a solid list: 4 bedrooms, 2 stories, 2 car garage and a big backyard. On the 'wish' side of the list was: big trees.
Our realtor called us during Christmas week 2004 to say, I think I found it!
When we got home we rushed over to see the
house. As we drove up we thought, NO way! look at those trees, is this for real? Two huge evergreens out front and a giant oak tree towering over the house in the back yard greeted us warmly.
Over the 5 years we have lived in our house we have really enjoyed our big trees. The oak in the backyard being one of the tallest in our neighborhood. I loved watching the squirrels tease our cat (who ran away the first year)...and the kids absolutely adored the swing (even after Tyler got hit in the head with it when they were swinging in the dark).
Yes, it was messy. About 50 wheelbarrows of leaves carted to the street each year...which we always procrastinated about raking up until it was Thanksgiving ;) Thank goodness for leaf pick-up!
BUT - all of that sweat payed for our 'free' air-conditioning in the summertime, as the tree shaded our house amazingly well and kept it nice and cool.
Whenever our friends came over, as many of you can attest to, we showed off the big tree with pride, as if we had planted it and 'grown' it ourselves. "Look at that tree! isn't it amazing?" we would say.
So...as you can see, on January 18, 2010 when an already howling wind began to bear down like a freight train outside our windows...and our 7-yr-old daughter ran downstairs crying with the dog barking at her heels...and I, with calm voice and fearless composure told Naomi that everything was okay even while I was shaking inside...when the lights went out and our eyes adjusted to the strange scene in our backyard we were devastated to discover our tree, our giant oak tree was no longer standing.
Just like that, it was gone. It was healthy, strong, and now laying horizontally across two yards, lots of power lines, half of our 20ft arborvitaes and about 40 feet of fence.
It took me about a week to move from sadness and loss to a sense of 'what a mess'! In the days and weeks that we have spent buying supplies, talking to insurance people, getting estimates to replace things and clean up work in general, I have come to feel, of all things, a sense of gratefulness.
Gratefulness for so many things. The most obvious one being that the tree didn't fall on our house or any of us! But not only did is not land on us, it landed in the one spot it could have landed without damaging any structures. Not even the kids' playhouse which they had just refurbished with a new roof and flooring, or the back neighbors giant storage building.
Also we get to rebuild our fences and we had lots of people offer to help us clean up and they did!
It brought all of us neighbors together as we helped each other in the aftermath and while the electricity was out for a day.
My take away from this whole event is this: even when the unexpected happens, even when things I love are unreliable, I can still trust that God will orchestrate the events in my life in a way that I can handle. Either by changing the outcome or by changing me. Or in most cases, both.
'The mighty oak may fall, but God will hold me up.'
No comments:
Post a Comment