The Old Oak Tree (A Story of Loss and Gain)
The Old Oak Tree (A Story of Loss and Gain)
by Danny C. Wash
“Cry, oak trees of Bashan, because your dense forest has fallen down.” Zechariah 11:2
The mighty oak began 150 years or so ago when a prudent squirrel dug a small hole and hid an acorn in the ground for the winter but then never returned to retrieve it.
A random event that occurs thousands of times but once in awhile important things are produced from small random acts.The acorn sprouted and pushed to the surface peeking into the forest seeking light from the sun and water from the rain.
The squirrel, in its infinite lucky wisdom, placed the acorn in the perfect spot, well drained and where the rain and sunlight could shower the oak’s branches and not be crowded out by other trees. It grew and grew year after year after year strengthened by the wind, sun, and rain.
Beneath it’s limbs and green leaves families experienced picnics, games, naps, love, tears, laughs and sadness. Generation after generation of children climbed the limbs of the oak.
Once, years ago, a father built a tree house in the large lower limbs until the children grew up and the house fell to the ground. The tree’s only name was “the old oak.”
The old oak had large and strong limbs that stretched outward like muscled arms into the surrounding air and shaded the dirt and grass below it.
Then, during a stormy night, one of the main branches was struck by a lightning bolt weakening it and beginning a slow deterioration until one day in another storm it gave way under its own weight and fell to the ground with a mighty crash. The tearing of the limb away left a large gaping hole in the trunk of the tree.
The heart of the tree felt the tearing and the pain of the ripping away of a main tree limb.The large hole began weeping tears of sap from the tear in the trunk. The inner heart of the tree also suffered with the death of of this limb, as if an important member of a family had died.
The tree wept sap for weeks until it finally began the long process of growing a scar over the hole in the trunk. At first, the tree suffered pain in the hole and when that lessened, it felt like the limb might still be there at times. And, then at other times the hole ached for the missing limb.
The tree also felt out of balance from the loss of such a weighty and important member of the tree. The other limbs needed to increase their work to make up for the loss of the contribution of life and energy to the tree and root system from the sun, air, wind, and rain.
Finally, the tree came to reluctant terms with the loss and the ugly scar that marred the appearance of the beautiful old tree. Then, after a long while, during the spring, the tree felt a tiny itching from the scarred area of the lost limb. The feeling increased over the weeks until the tree realized that a small sprout of a branch was growing out from the area of the scar of the fallen branch.
Life out of death, good from bad. Gain from loss. The scar is still there and the missing limb is not forgotten but the old oak’s life grows and goes on. Never the same but growing upward and outward day by day, little by little, in resolution and hope.
