The Root

While driving home from the funeral today, I noticed all the bare trees, bereft of leaves. Usually, I miss the beauty of the colors on the branches. But today, it was if Diann tapped me on the shoulder and said,

"Look, Carrie."

I slowed the car, pulled to the side of the street and leaned over my steering wheel. Yes, it was true. Those exposed branches were reaching, stretching, toward heaven. The trees were worshipping - and without the leaves it was more apparent the direction the limbs were pointing. There was nothing inhibiting my view of the naked stretches of bark, grasping the sky.

Suffering does that. It leaves us naked and vulnerable. But ultimately, it reveals who we really are. And I learned that from my friend, Diann Hunt. Even though she was stripped of everything, her health, her ability to eat, her strength, so much of what we humanly crave - it only revealed and lay bare the One she was worshipping. The brokenness and suffering she endured only further exposed the One who agonized the most - the One whose agony means we will suffer no more one day...that she suffers no more - RIGHT NOW.

I smiled as Jesus showed me the beauty in those brittle branches, because no matter how deep the temperature of this frigid winter decides to drop, those branches will keep pulling toward the sun. They will stand unprotected and leafless, bared before the world.

Because those branches know they have nothing to do with their survival. They know where their source is: the roots. The roots will continue to dig deeper, holding strong and carrying the rest of the tree through the suffering days of freezing ice and blasting wind.

There is such beauty in the broken and suffering who are willing to allow God to use the agonizing moments to reveal their unashamed worship. Because, like Diann, they do not have to be afraid.

They know who their Root is.