January 4, 2010
Jesus said to them, My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I, too, am working. John 5:17
The Pa-hay-okee Overlook in Everglades National Park is an observation tower with a panoramic view of the “River of Grass” that makes up a large part of the park. It’s reached by a short boardwalk trail that loops through a bald cypress forest. While walking there last January, I thought the gray and lifeless-looking trees standing in the marshy ground were dead.
A nearby sign set me straight. The trees were very much alive—they were merely dormant. As the end of the year approaches, the needles of a bald cypress drop on to the limestone upon which the Everglades is built. The decaying leaves eat away at the sedimentary rock and create a hollow around the tree. Not only does this cavity allow the tree’s roots to grow deeper, but water collects in it to provide for the cypress through the dry season of winter. A tall, stripped bald cypress is in fact an extremely healthy tree just waiting for spring.
I know all about dormant phases. There have been days, weeks and years in which life looked bleak and my desperate prayers weren’t answered. I’ve been through infertility, financial woes, parenting worries, migraines, panic attacks and caring for a mother-in-law with dementia—and I’m quite sure I’ll add to that list in the future. In those seasons, often all I can cling to is the promise that God is alive and well and working in me and with me and through me, even when I don’t see, feel or understand what’s happening. Looking back, I see how the death of dreams and the hard times I thought were eating away at my foundation instead became the very things that God used to bring new growth.
If life is gray right now, hold on! You may be dormant, but God is not. The tears you shed, the prayers you continue to pray even when they seem to go nowhere and the faith you hang on to for dear life are creating a space for God to fill you up with what you need for this season of your life—and the next.
And spring will come…it always does.
Dear Penny,
I really liked your thoughts on the bald cypress and the dormant season. I know just what you are talking about. Thanks for sharing this so well.
Alice
Thank you, Penny. Those were wise and helpful words to read today. Peggy
This is THE TRUTH! God is so much bigger and smarter than we are. His perspective is so much higher than ours. Absolutely unfathomable that He loves us, but He does. He knows what you need before you know you have a need. Thanks, Penny, for the picture I now have in my mind about the bald cypress. A timely reminder that I don’t need to know and understand, just trust.
Living in So. Calif, we don’t see a lot of dormancy nor bursts of Spring. But I have lived back East, so I know how discouraging it can be to see it all around me. Long ago, the Lord showed me how He was feeding and fertilizing the seemingly-dead trees, just waiting for that glorious dance of Spring! Winter, He said, should be used to grow deeper in Him. Without Winter, we wouldn’t have much of a Spring! It’s all in HIS time, just like life. Happy to read you got the same message, Penny!
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