We can experience many casualties in life that leave us wounded, scarred and feeling as if we will never recover. When I read the following story, I immediately began to see a picture form of how wounds, if submitted to the Lord, will not only strengthen us, but bring glory to the Lord
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Po Bronson, in his book WHY DO I LOVE THESE PEOPLE? (Random House, 2005), tells a true story about a magnificent elm tree. The tree was planted in the first half of the 20th Century on a farm near Beulah, Michigan (USA). It grew to be a magnificent tree. In the 1950s, the family that owned the farm kept a bull chained to the elm. The bull paced around the tree, dragging a heavy iron chain with him, which scraped a trench in the bark about three feet off ground. The trench deepened over the years, though for whatever reason, did not kill the tree.
After some years, the family sold the farm and took their bull. They cut the chain, leaving the loop around the tree and one link hanging down. Over the years, bark slowly covered the rusting chain. Then one year, agricultural catastrophe struck Michigan in the form of Dutch Elm Disease. It left a path of death across vast areas. All of the elms lining the road leading to the farm became infected and died. Everyone figured that old, stately elm would be next. There was no way the tree could last, between the encroaching fungus and its chain belt strangling its trunk. The farm's owners considered doing the safe thing: pulling it out and chopping it up into firewood before it died and blew over onto the barn in a windstorm. But they simply could not bring themselves to do it. It was as if the old tree had become a family friend. So they decided to let nature take its course.
Amazingly, the tree did not die. Year after year it thrived. Nobody could understand why it was the only elm still standing in the county! Plant pathologists from Michigan State University came out to observe the tree. They observed the scar left by the iron chain, now almost completely covered by bark and badly corroded. The plant experts decided that it was the chain that saved the elm's life. They reasoned that the tree must have absorbed so much iron from the rusting chain, that it became immune to the fungus. It's said that what doesn't kill you will make you stronger. Or, as Ernest Hemingway put it, "Life breaks us all, but afterwards, many of us are strongest at the broken places."
The next time you're in Beulah, Michigan, look for that beautiful elm. It spans 60 feet across its lush, green crown. The trunk is about 12 feet in circumference. Look for the wound made by the chain. It serves as a reminder that because of our wounds, we can have hope! Our wounds can give us resources we need to cope and survive. They can truly make us strong.
Story by Steve Goodier
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Let this story serve as a reminder that we may never be strangers to being wounded. As we live our lives, life will always have a way of throwing curve balls; but if God be God, He is going to make good on his Word... Down the road He has a plan for that curve ball that will knock it right out of the park! HOME RUN!!!
At times the very wounds that afflict us, like the Elm tree, chained and poisoned; are likely to destroy us or at the least leave us in bondage with dirty old chains growing within us. But our God, who is gracious and merciful, will not forsake us nor destroy us (Deuteronomy 4:31). He will use the very wounds to propel us to life and destiny, leaving all who have inspected our wounds and gave us a writ of death to marvel that the very chain that infected us with a lethal poison, is the very one that will bring healing to us!
We quote Jeremiah 29:11 so often; I wonder if we really understand the magnitude of what the Lord is conveying. For I KNOW the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end (Jeremiah 29:11). He is THINKING thoughts of PEACE about us, not EVIL! Our God has no intention of bringing harm to us! If we could only grab hold to that concept alone. Even when it feels as though we are in the very belly of hell; we have to summons our confidence in the Word and not be moved by our emotion and circumstances. We must stand on His Word and His promises. We will save ourselves from inflicting needless poison to the wound and making worse the very injury our Lord is bringing healing to, if we will only continue to stand, like that Elm tree and BELIEVE. He knows the exact outcome He has already planned; and He fully expects to see you at the finish line, healed and whole. HE EXPECTS IT!!!
We have His promise that whatever we go through; He will cause it to turn out for our good. Wounds will happen, life will throw us curves and bind us with chains and possibly scar us; but in the midst of living for Christ, He will heal our wounds and He will finish His perfect work in us!!! EXPECT IT!!!
