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Beautifying the Family Tree
My dear friend Sam Lowry posted this amazing photograph on Facebook recently. “A single climbing rose has fully colonized its host tree,” he noted. This marvel grows on the street in Portland where Sam grew up.
The picture captivates me. I think about my own family tree, and how through my life it’s been pruned and undergone grafting.
We’ve lost limbs through death and divorce, stacking the remnants back behind the shed. There it lays, out of sight, so much emotional kindling, waiting for a spark of regret to light it.
Sometimes I dwell on the woodpile; sometimes I ignore it.
Yet we’ve gained limbs through birth and marriage, hopeful tender shoots reaching for the sky, reaching to help create the sheltering shade that is my family.
No arborist nor genealogist would choose my family tree as the type example of the species.
Still, it is one magnificent tree. Its shape may not conform to any archetype, but it’s strong and sturdy.
A single climbing rose has enveloped that Portland tree in sprays of roses, exhaling a gentle fragrance. God’s love spreads across my family tree, softening the gnarled angles, sweetening it. We pick up the scent and pass it on, limb to precious limb.
8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8 (NASB)
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