Tag Archives: trees

Running roots

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I’ve mentioned my love of running before, but these days, it takes up a lot of my thoughts. Just a few short weeks ago, I registered to run my first marathon and sat down with my husband (who also happens to make a great unofficial running coach) and mapped out my long runs from now until mid-June, when I’ll run the marathon.

I wish I could say I feel completely confident about reaching this new goal, but overly tight muscles and memories of old injuries keep threatening to drag me down. Anyone who has run a marathon will tell you that overcoming the mental hurdles is half (or more) of the battle. And so I know I need to win the mental race before I’ll be able to endure the physical one.

That’s where patience and discipline come in. Let me be the first to admit that neither of these two virtues is a strength of mine, but I know I’ll need to cultivate both to toe the line at that June marathon with a firm hope of finishing.

Running the marathon is a bit like enjoying a fully grown and thriving tree planted in your yard. Trees don’t just spring up fully grown overnight, just as humans don’t typically wake up one morning and find themselves magically able to run 26.2 miles.  Continue reading →

Two lives imitating trees

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In last week’s post Two trees imitating life?, I wrote about two tree sculptures imitating life, or death, or maybe even tennis balls, depending on how you view the art. I promised to follow up this week with more about the blessed life being like a tree planted by water, and here’s a picture of some pretty cool tree roots to get you thinking of what the tree planted by water may look like:

Trees and their roots growing by a creek

The passage I shared with you last week actually describes two lives that are like trees, just very different kinds. One life is blessed, but the other is cursed.  Continue reading →

Two trees imitating life?

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I’ve been working on a book chapter about Jeremiah 17:5-8, in which Jeremiah compares a cursed man to a bush in the desert who will live “in a land of salt without inhabitant” (v. 6).

Well, I had never heard of a land of salt and really couldn’t picture what that might look like, and so I googled the phrase just to see what would come up. The Bonneville Salt Flats just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, showed up in the list of hits.

If you read through the Google hits for the Bonneville Salt Flats, you’ll see words like “nothing for miles,” “desolate,” and “barren.” Famous races happen there, by car and on foot, but – and this is mainly for my sweet husband – please don’t feel like you have to go run the 100-mile race there … ever. (Even if you could leave your salt tablets at home and still be okay.) Despite the attraction for speed junkies, there’s a whole lot of nothing to this desert land.  Continue reading →

The power of hope

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Will you bear with me for one last post this season about Christmas trees? I promise it’s about more than just the tree that’s sitting out on our lawn waiting for the yard pickup tomorrow. It’s about the power of hope.

I had a hard time undecorating from Christmas this past weekend. I mean a pouting, near tears, really surprisingly difficult time. Only reluctantly did I take off the ornaments and pack them away, knowing that the tree couldn’t stay up much longer without starting to shed its needles. But for some reason, I didn’t want to let go.

There were actually several reasons. One – this tree was the quite simply the best tree we’ve ever had. We picked it out at a Christmas tree farm in the North Carolina mountains, where signs were plastered everywhere thanking us for participating in NC’s agritourism business. That was a new term for us, but we embraced it as a suitable description for marching around a hillside full of trees trying to pick the perfect one. Once we picked this one and the guys brought it down the hill for us, they called it a “fat boy.” It was really, really fat. I worried it would swallow up the room we were putting it in.  Continue reading →

The Christmas tree psalm

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^
< * >
v
The
LORD is
my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down
in green pastures; He leads
me beside still waters. He restores
my soul; He guides me in the paths
of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for
You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they
comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head
with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy
will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the
house
of the
LORD
forever.
Psalm 23

‘Tis the season to feel stressed out, to feel that Time cares little whether we have crossed off our to-do items for the day and definitely won’t slow down to let us catch up. We can’t tackle Time and make him give us more hours in each day. So instead, what if we focus on what we can change: our mindset.  Continue reading →