Odditrees

Yesterday, after some blissful time reading and writing (with 99% of my Covid symptoms gone), I visited the Covid-19 Update Site. 

Just when I am finally beginning to understand the terms GCQ with “some restrictions” and GCQ with “heightened restrictions” and the MECQ in the NCR “bubble with high risk and moderate risk” in “ADAR blah, blah, blah,” here come "APOR, granular lockdown, Alert Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5" and other new gobbledygook. 

My brain bled. It screamed, “SIMPLIFY A COMPLICATED CRISIS AND COMMUNICATE CLEARLY! #@^&%!” 

To stop the hemorrhage, I decided to tour the world instead and enjoy God’s calming creation: trees. 

We have about a dozen trees in our yard, planted by my late dad years ago (today would have been his 101st birthday). If only our yard were wider, he’d have planted more.  

Dad used to say, “While still young, a tree can be designed the way you want it to grow. You can braid the supple branches or put together several saplings. You want it lean and tall? Chop the branches this way. If you want it squat . . .” 

“Oooh,” was all I could contribute.

“But,” he stressed, “only God can make a tree grow by giving you more rainfall, or less intense dry period, or lower temperatures.” 

Indeed abundant sunshine and water are what trees need to grow straight up quickly.  But because of abrupt weather changes in different parts of the world, we see awesome and amazing oddities! Let’s call them “odditrees.”

Here are some that made me gasp and gulp.

There are more, but I am reserving them for my next tour, when my brain begins to bleed, break, and burst again.  

Man may have planted and designed them, but only grace made them grow and finally look like this way and that way. 

“ . . . all the trees will know that it is I, the LORD, who cuts the tall tree down and makes the short tree grow tall. It is I who makes the green tree wither and gives the dead tree new life. . .” (Ezekiel 17:24 NLT) 

Photo credits: pinterest.com