The other day while Nate went into the grocery store to pick up a few items, I sat in the car looking at the trees. They were ready to burst forth with new leaves . . . all the leaves between them would form a picturesque canopy . . . a visual awesomeness of different shades of green for the eye to behold.

Looking at the trunks and limbs, I saw their raw display of limbs born in various years. I saw many knots where branches had been born, an unexplained crookedness or brokenness that formed in the trees and branches as they grew.

I have heard people say, “I can’t be an artist because I can’t draw a straight line” . . . Sitting there observing the nature of trees, branches, foliage, there were no straight lines in nature.

Like the trees, many of us have experienced the unexplained turns, knots and brokenness that the very nature of “living a life” brings . . . Our character and canvas, like the trees, comes from many bent, knotted or broken branches. Our lives are not given to straight lines.

Then we must take on the strong steadfast Nature of God and like the trees, go forward in faith and hope and form a canopy of leaves for ourselves and for others to witness . . . that we, too, have many spring times inside us.