The Unlikely Messenger: A Slice of Life with Debra Brown
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” – Isaiah 43:19. (NIV)
I’ll admit it. I’m a tree hugger.
Not in the chaining-myself-to-a-redwood sense, but in the stop-and-admire-a-beautiful-oa
For years, several large trees lined part of my neighborhood walking route. They provided shade on hot summer mornings and homes for countless birds and squirrels. Their towering branches draped with Spanish moss were part of the Southern beauty I loved. Their beauty made the entrance to our neighborhood feel welcoming.
Then one by one, they came down. Three disappeared in one day. A few days later, four more were gone. Xs marked other trees for removal. Ugly stumps marred the view.
“I don’t understand,” I said to my husband, Allen. “These were healthy trees, three or four stories tall.”
I fumed. “The golf course folks say they are the reason for the dead grass. But we’re in the worst drought in history. Grass everywhere is dead. They need to run the sprinkler system.”
Allen didn’t disagree.
“I liked the shade, too, when I played golf in that area.”
We’d had a tornado come through years ago that took down 80 trees in the neighborhood, and lightning had claimed a few others. I understood those losses.
But these were seven healthy trees.
Each time I passed a freshly cut stump, my heart hurt.
I knew that route by heart: the places where squirrels scampered across the road, birds gathered in the branches, and shade offered relief from the Georgia sun. Those trees had been there longer than any of the houses, weathering hurricanes, droughts, and countless summer storms.
Now, instead of looking up into branches draped with Spanish moss, I looked across open patches of sky.
The road looked bare without the dappled shade.
I missed the trees.
A month or so later, one of Allen’s golf friends mentioned how lush the course looked.
“Getting rid of those trees made a big difference,” he said.
Allen shook his head. “The trees had nothing to do with it. Look around. The whole course is green. Give the credit to a month of soaking rain and the sprinklers.”
I smiled when Allen told me. I’d never loved him more.
The trees hadn’t been the problem after all.
One evening, during my after-dinner serenity stroll, I found myself thinking about those trees again.
The day’s heat was easing as I followed my familiar route. I passed an old oak stump that had been cut down years earlier after a lightning strike. The tree had been gone so long that I rarely noticed it anymore.
But this time something caught my eye.
Clusters of mushrooms had appeared along the side of the stump.
I stopped walking and leaned closer. The rough bark was damp under my touch.
There, in the middle of what I had considered dead and gone, new life was growing.
Not another oak tree.
Not fresh green leaves stretching toward the sky.
Something different stood before me.
Standing there, I felt God shift my perspective.
I had spent weeks focusing on what was gone.
The trees.
The shade.
The familiar landscape.
God was inviting me to notice what was still growing.
How often do we do the same thing in our own lives?
We mourn a closed door, a lost opportunity, a changing season, or a dream that didn’t unfold as expected. We focus on what has been cut away while God brings new life in places we have stopped looking.
I know what it is to wish a season of life could be restored to what it was.
But standing beside that old stump, I realized renewal doesn’t always look like restoration.
The mushrooms weren’t replacing the oak or giving me back its sprawling branches and shade.
They were something new.
Maybe that was what I needed to see.
God doesn’t always rebuild our lives to look like they did before the storm, loss, or unexpected change. Sometimes He grows something we never would have thought to ask for; something different, but still beautiful.
Maybe the question isn’t always, “God, will You give me back what I lost?”
Maybe sometimes it’s, “God, help me see what You’re growing now.”
As I continued my walk, I glanced back one last time.
The old tree was gone.
But the story wasn’t over.
Sometimes an ending is really a beginning.
Heavenly Father, when I focus on what has been lost, help me notice the new things You are growing. Open my eyes to Your work, even when it looks different than I expected. Amen.
Debra Brown’s motto is “Be the Spark.” She has a passion for family, her 3 cats, flowers, pretty food, and health & wellness. Debra is an author, UGA honors graduate/The Citadel MBA.