"And All The Trees of the Field will Clap their Hands"

Can you see it? The right side outline of a carved-in heart and initials.

The "H" is still visible and the "B" barely shows, but the "M" and "L" have grown into the tree.

M.H

+

L.B.

Mike and I strolled through the park and looked at "our" tree by the river bank.

We carved into this tree at least 30 years ago. I remember that early morning. Young lovers memorializing love and hope for growth. The carving has faded. The tree has grown and matured. We could not have known then, the unexpected, wild and heavenward direction our love has taken.

 

“For you will go out with joy
         And be led forth with peace;
         The mountains and the hills will break forth

before you into singing,
         And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 

Isaiah 55:12

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Another leaf:

When I was a girl about 10, I remember looking up through the trees and feeling, sensing and knowing that God had called me to Himself. There was more at work than the breeze through the trees. It wasn't like magic, it was the Holy Spirit. Then, I thought I was resisting Him and choosing my way, but His grace is thankfully irresistible! Years later I remembered those childhood trees when I learned this verse:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Today I was reminded again as I looked up through the majestic Cottonwoods and was reminded FULL-ON! that He's transforming me as quietly and drastically as the trees, but differently.

 ...you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 1 Peter 1:23

              Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
                                            Hebrews 13:8