Hold On

It's crazy windy in Middle Tennessee today!  Fall is trying desperately to make an entrance, but warmer temperatures keep it at bay.  The leaves have changed, but since we haven't had the rain that we need, it seems this year that the colors aren't as vibrant, along with the fact that the trees are letting them go more quickly.  As I was taking my son to school this morning, I noticed a smaller tree that was being whipped by the wind.  If the leaves could talk (which the older I get, I do animate and give things voices :) ) I believe that they would be screaming, "Hold on!  Hold on for dear life!"  At that very moment, God began forming this on my heart.  "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit."  (Isaiah 11:1)  As I looked at the leaves being battered by the wind and trying to hold on, I thought of the excruciating "wind" that this life deals us living in this world:  lies, pain, divorce, success at all cost, disease, disappointment, loss, exhaustion, addiction, shame, guilt, and the list could go on an on.  But as long as we hang on to the Branch, we have LIFE.  Leaves apart from the branch wither and die.  Leaves that decide to fly off on their own and ride the wind, never have a source of direction, and they are a slave to the wind.  The Branch (Jesus Christ) is the only source of true life.

Daffodils

The daffodils bend as the wind pours over them. They sway, but they never lay down. They are resilient...they continue to bloom no matter how much they are blown...if it rains on them it doesn't destroy them. In Christ we have the strength to be like the daffodil. The winds, storms, and rains of life may try to make us buckle, lay down, or even be destroyed, but in Christ we can always rise above and bloom.

"The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock." Matt. 7:25