Be a Tree

By Tawna Wilkinson 

 

One morning, late in spring, during a very dark period in my life, I was blankly staring at an apple tree just outside my dining room window. The morning sun had just peeked over the mountain and was glistening on, and rustling, the leaves. 

But I wasn’t focused on the tree, or the beauty of the morning, as much as I was fixed on a raw, painful thought: What does a person have to do in order for transformation of the heart to actually take place?

A couple of months prior, I had been on staff as the children’s pastor at the church I was attending. I loved the children and the ministry, and was zealous and passionate; working many long hours in order to bring about the vision God had given me. In fact, that was the story of my life, in and out of church, as long as I could remember. 

My family of origin’s motto was work hard and do a hundred percent at all times, carrying with it the connotation that hard work brought about one’s value. The denomination I grew up in taught that if Jesus had really transformed your heart you would do, do, and do for Him, because that’s what loving Jesus looked like. 

And I did love Jesus. I had come to Him at a young age, and wanted very much to please Him.  So, my modus operandii was full throttle, no matter what, especially when the kingdom of God was involved.

But deep below the surface of my hardworking zeal was a yawning, cavernous void I kept trying to fill with all the activity. I was desperately trying to muster a sense of worth. I had no idea I already had value…intrinsic value, simply because God loved me and created me; that my worth had never been contingent upon any activity; and that transformation of my heart was a simple, yet extravagant transaction: God sending His love to me, and me receiving it. 

So, I stayed with what I knew until I burned out and drove the ministry in the ground.

Needless to say, the next months were spent in a counselor’s office unearthing all kinds of ugly, pain, confusion and disillusionment, while wrestling with the belief that I did have value, and learning how to love myself enough to receive the love He was sending right where I was at.

So that morning, pensive with the question and vacantly staring at the apple tree, God spoke out of the quietness: “What does a tree have to ‘do’ in order that photosynthesis takes place?”

“What?”

“What does a tree have to ‘do’ in order that photosynthesis takes place?”

Refocusing my gaze on the sun rustling the tree’s leaves, I intelligently replied:

“Uh…receive light?”

“Exactly.”

Boom.  I knew I had heard.  My mind and spirit were racing with the information welling up in me.

Photosynthesis:  “The process by which chlorophyll-containing cells in green plants convert incident light to chemical energy and synthesize organic compounds from inorganic compounds, especially carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water with the simultaneous release of oxygen.”  (The American Heritage Dictionary)

Bam.  Photosynthesis: The miraculous process that transforms the light the apple tree’s leaves receive into food energy, instigating internal assimilation, and vitality throughout its system, and then, as a mere consequence, releases oxygen into the atmosphere.

In other words, life happens inside the apple before life emerges from it.  And the only thing it has to “do” for that to take place, is receive light through the chlorophyll-containing cells in its leaves.

He spoke, again.

“Simply be a tree, Tawna.”

In that instant, I realized my value was innate, simply because Love loved and created me. And that all the activity I would I ever need to “do” in order that genuine transformation of my heart take place was simply receive Light through my “chlorophyll-containing leaves”… my love-designed, heart, mind and soul.  Then He would miraculously do the “doing” in me…as well as outside of me.

So, my encouragement to you?  Be a tree.