Protected Stump
As most Bradford Pears will ultimately do, half of our tree fell down in a storm. We called several tree trimming companies, but their prices were hiked up, and they were too busy to do our work because of all the trees down in Knoxville, so Greg decided to take it down himself with the help of a few friends. It was a TON of work and took a lot of time and a lot of trips to the dump on some very hot days.
Because of all that, we were left with this stump for a long time in our front yard. Greg had planned to rent a stump grinder, but it turned out that it would be around the same amount of money to have someone else do it, so he hired a company. But they never came, I suppose for the same reasons as I mentioned above.
It’s been good timing for me, though, for this big tree to go down and for the stump to remain in our front yard. A week or two after it went down, I studied chapter four of Daniel in my Daniel study at church. In this chapter, Nebuchadnezzar is compared to a great tree that is felled and chopped up, and yet the stump is to be left. What an object lesson for me! We poisoned our stump, and we plan to grind it up because we don’t want it to grow again, but in the vision in Daniel, God leaves Nebuchadnezzar’s stump protected because He plans to let Nebuchadnezzar flourish again after a time, which, if you read the chapter, you’ll find happens. Nebuchadnezzar loses his mind for a time and then is brought back to his senses, when he decides to turn and praise God, giving Him glory for everything.
I love the image of the protected stump, though. It may seem that Nebuchadnezzar has lost everything, but he is protected with a band of iron and bronze.
There is hope even when all looks lost.