I couldn’t resist snapping this photo Sunday afternoon en route to the grocery store…hey, I’m visual!

It’s not that I don’t understand that old things pass away and behold, all things are become new. Sometimes I just need a moment to adjust to the rate and pace of change.

Last Friday as I drove home, I saw the arborists working on a tree-filled corner, lopping entire limbs (not just branches) off a row of trees that had grown hazardously entangled in the nearby power lines. At that location, I’d seen them snip a branch here and there over the past few years, but this was kinda drastic. I looked at the stark tree trunks with nubs where their arms had once been extended. I wanted a photo of the transformation, but I didn’t take a walk that evening.

As I headed early out for Saturday morning activities, I passed the arborists at work again. By the time I returned home on Saturday afternoon, there was a truckload of wood shavings being hauled away in the opposite direction. Well, I thought to myself, I’ve just gotta make sure I take a walk today and get a picture of those nubs. My schedule dictated otherwise.

Heading to Sunday morning worship service, I beheld only sawed up tree trunks looking like dejected logs and their stumps…there was no evidence of branches or nubs; they had all had been hauled away in less than 24 hours. On Friday, I had no idea of the extent of the project; I thought the property owners were only cutting back enough of the foliage to appease the local energy company with unencumbered power lines. They went above and beyond the call of duty to eliminate the root cause (literally) of any potential future issues.

I realized that the only photo I’d capture after church would likely be of grass. But wouldn’t that be a miraculous statement in and of itself? That where all this twisted, mangled brush had once resided, it was now clean and clear, thanks to a touch from the Master Arborist Who held a vision, purpose, and plan for those trees and that land from the beginning? And I began to rejoice in the work that had taken place. It seemed swift from my perspective, but it was really a long-overdue action.

What I had planned to capture in still frames, God showed me in time lapse photography…in fast-forward mode. The hewing down and dismantling of entire trees seemed like an instantaneous occurrence, but it was still a steady progression – though an accelerated process from my admittedly limited vantage point. Here it is a week later, and I still marvel at how different that corner looks without those trees. And I yield to His sovereignty as He adjusts my personal landscape to His heavenly vision; there still remains some “stuff” that needs to be ground up like sawdust and hauled away.

p.s. Would you believe that by the time I returned home Monday evening, those remnant logs (in the above photo) were a faint and distant memory? Only tree stumps and small piles of sawdust survived as residue…nothing to see or photograph here…move along, folks…now THAT’LL preach! #NewDay #NewSeason #NewDispensation

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”
(Philippians 1:6, KJV)

“I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].”
(Philippians 1:6, AMP)

© Copyright 2018 by Kayren J. Cathcart