The tree fell in a good place!

WHERE THE TREE FALLS

Some years back we were privileged to take a new child into our home. Alan Raffield was a fifteen year old who needed a place to call home for a few years while finishing high school. What an adventure it was for two old people like Charlie and me to experience parenting a teenager again.

We had some ups and downs and some highs and lows, but all in all it was a great experience that made for a solid relationship that continues to this day. I learned many things while Alan lived with us. When Alan was seventeen he and his best friend Brandon, brought a whole new meaning to the verse in Ecclesiastes that states, “Where the tree falls, there shall it lay.” (Eccl. 11:3)

Trying to keep the boy busy during the hot summer months, I decided to have him clear some brush near the back of our house. First, there was the need of a bow saw, clippers and gloves; so it was off to the hardware store. With all the needed supplies purchased and delivered to my field hands, I went to the grocery store to get them something cold to drink.

Now you have to realize that my trips to the store are not quickies. Down one of the aisles was an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages. During the course of our twenty minute or so conversation we covered everything from her daughter’s marriage to the exciting time my pastor and I had recently when we led a man to Christ in my office.

Of course I had to stop and get ice for the Gatorade I had purchased. There’s nothing like cold Gatorade to keep two teenagers working. It was at the convenience store that I happened to meet up with a local pastor who drives a delivery truck on the side.

Another twenty minutes ticked by while we rejoiced together over the recent Bible Reading Marathon we had and how God was working in our community. These were all positive conversations on my grocery trip.

Oh, did I mention that Charlie had prayed for the boy’s safety before I left the house and while he was at it threw in a request that God would give us grace and PATIENCE?

Finally home, I drove into the back yard. It’s hard to describe the scene of devastation that lay before my eyes. No, it wasn’t a tornado. Could it have been a hurricane? Maybe it was a dream, or more likely a nightmare!

Dashing into the house I asked Charlie if he had seen what the kids had done. He replied by saying he had just gotten home from taking the chainsaw to neighboring Eastman for repairs and no, he had no idea what they had done.

The boys were so proud of their work. They had cut down just about every tree in the area where I had instructed them to cut only the brush…sixty-six in all! The oak trees were 15-20 years old. Alan proudly exclaimed that he had left the pines, one of which was dead! I just knew it was going to take me awhile to get over this one.

I never imagined when I taught Ecclesiastes in a Sunday school class at the Jeffersonville Church of God, that the scripture that had become one of my favorites, would come back to test me so severely.

When Solomon penned those words it was a metaphorical way of stating the fact that there is no sense in crying over spilled milk. “Where the tree falls, there shall it lay.” Most likely in modern day lingo he would have said, “Get over it, honey. What’s done is done.”

I managed to keep my cool, made a big lunch for the kids and even smiled when Alan asked if he could knock off at four o’clock and go to his friend’s house. I reminded myself about the positive side of this whole debacle -- the chainsaw had been taken to the repair shop. Can you even imagine what could have happened, if those two teenagers had had a working chainsaw? I shudder to think.

(As an update on Alan…he has been happily married since March of 2009 to his high school sweetheart, Brittany. On October 4th of this year they became the proud parents of a little 8lb, 14 oz. baby boy whom they named Ayden Wilson Raffield.)

As for the downed trees, I wasn’t able to put them back on the stumps. Neither can I change anything else in my life, whether good or bad. Paul puts it this way in Philippians, “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:13-14)

Do you have some downed trees in your life, situations that you would give anything if they had gone in a different direction, choices you wish you hadn’t made and can’t undo? Quit looking at the past. Ask the Lord to help you to look forward to Him. He will give you the grace to make it past every stump, and He may even give you a smile on your way.