A Tree Grows

“The tree whose leafy umbrella had curled around, under and over her fire escape had been cut down because they complained that wash on the lines got entangled in its branches. The landlord had sent two men and they had chopped it down. 

But the tree hadn’t died…it hadn’t died.

A new tree had grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it. Then it had started to grow toward the sky again.

But this tree in the yard—this tree that men chopped down…this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump—this tree lived!

It lived!

And nothing could destroy it.”

(From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith)

The above excerpt could be written about the lives of so many abuse survivors. We have each been that tree, chopped down with violence and left as nothing but a stump of our former selves, waiting to die. But we didn't die; somehow we found within a stubborn will to live even though we might never again be more than an ungainly stump, a painful reminder of our former beauty.


We have been pleasantly surprised by  growth from those old stumps, for God delights in saying "Live!" where others are too quick to condemn us to a whimpering death.

Oh, we have grown new trunks, trunks hardier than one could imagine, and branches which have graced the sky like open arms in generous benediction. Children have climbed us, swinging monkey style from branch to branch, delighting themselves with their brave daring. Our rugged trunks  have withstood the storms and tempests of many an unforgiving winter.  We've borne them unflinchingly, as obstinate in our resolve to survive as our abusers were in their greed to chop or whittle us down into nothing simply because we were an inconvenience, our needs and desires and wounds an infuriating entanglement to their lives.

We have suffered the indignity of fall and winter's denuding, our branches now ugly and bare except for an occasional sifting of snow which made us, if only temporarily, beautiful again. We've dared to hope when Spring burst forth its happy song, and buds burst through our limbs, that for us there will some day be an Eternal Spring.

Though we know ourselves to be weak and oftentimes fragile, still we are here surviving and growing, still we are here to proclaim to the world that in spite of everything we live.

We live.

Comments

[Austin]

We live.

Thank you. Thank you so much for this.
Austin

[Austin]

Job 14:7-9 says:

7 For there exists hope for even a tree.
If it gets cut down, it will even sprout again,
And its own twig will not cease to be.

8 If its root grows old in the earth
And in the dust its stump dies,

9 At the scent of water it will sprout
And it will certainly produce a bough like a new plant.

(your writing grips, it really does. i know you will write a best seller one day, i just know it.)
Austin

[beauty]

Thank you Austin, I hardly remember writing this!

I've always loved those verses from Job, they are just so absolutely encouraging and beautiful.

[Labyrinth]

Fabulous post... thank you for the reminder that we do grow again.