The image of a tree

Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to be on the planning committee of a retreat for International Students throughout the Netherlands. Although it took some energy to prepare, it was great to finally be away on the weekend with the other staff and students. There are many things that I would share with you from the retreat, but there's an image that came to me while I was spending time with God on the Saturday morning. It's a bit hard for me to share this, because it's quite personal, but I want people to know a bit about where I'm at and my journey with God, so here goes.

At the retreat we were in beautiful surroundings. There was forest pretty much all around us. As I was thinking about the trees, I had the image that I was a tree. I'm currently a tree that has no leaves and feels spiritually dead. I think that's how I've been feeling lately. I tend to spend time reading God's word only for work, and not for myself. I feel like I'm a tree in the middle of winter, that is just surviving. I've cut off so much of myself in order to just survive. It sounds harsh, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. God's word tells that 'there is a time for everything' (read more in Ecclesiastes 3) and I feel like I've been having a time of survival. The image that I got was more than this though. I had the feeling that Spring is coming, that I will soon start to blossom and new life will come from me again. I will no longer be surviving, but I will again start to thrive. This image brings me such a sense of joy and anticipation that I can't express it.

I don't really know what this image fully means, or how it's going to come about. I do know that it excites me and it helps me to understand and explain a bit of how I've been feeling. Let me leave you with a Psalm that has stood out to me, and continues on with this tree theme/idea:

Psalm 1

'Blessed is the man

    who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners

    or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

   and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

    which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

    Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked!

    They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the the judgement,

    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

    but the way of the wicked will perish.'