Thank You Lord! How many times have you been able to express a heartfelt thank you this past week? You know, as I, that as Eucharistic people it’s in our bones. Even when our world is sometimes reeling with pithy negativity, Jesus is gently inviting us to be healers - filled with His Holy Spirit. With the celebration of a joyous Christmas just around the corner and memories of a tough election season behind us, gratitude might compel us to consider mending some fences and extending a friendly hand to those we may have offended or those who offended us. As a matter of fact, good news, I’m sure it does. Emmanuel inspires us into real healing and needed restoration, strengthening our relationships in Christ-filled love.
To help keep this reconciliation in context, one of my groupies recently told a story about a wounded tree-root which at first appeared to be large, but then… One autumn day, he was out in his yard peering down at the surface root of a maple tree which he had been evidently nicking for years while mowing his lawn. The root’s damaged area was dark and callused with concentric rings of toughened wood protruding up waiting for the next attack by Mr.Toro. It seems the original nick on the delicate root had self-protected, grown into a large knob that needed attention and attending to every time he mowed. My friend decided it was time to remedy this thing, so with his tools and proceeded to dig this ‘thing’ out. What he discovered was that on either side of the rather large knob, the root was no bigger round’ than his finger. Over time, the nicked area had festered into a huge tough mass to protect the original hurt.
Timely, and now somewhat humorous, it reminds me of a recent God-Moment we experienced at our home. Last May, we’d hired a small company in to remove some dead brush from our hill. Before the workers arrived, I was called away to attend to an emergency with my father. When I returned, I found the hired help unusually distraught and packing up to leave. They had stripped the hill down to the dirt, and a neighbor taking notice had called the city officials. We live in a protected area, and with this, I had broken statutes galore. The environmental protection agents kindly but firmly shutdown the project; requiring us to hire an approved engineer, and replant the entire area with specific approved plant types. After a few days, anger towards my neighbor began festering, becoming dark, and growing it’s own tough rings of callousness. Upon reflection, I was wasting time, caught up in thoughts of revenge. My small nick was changing into something ugly. I needed a savior, Come Lord Jesus Come!
Enter Jesus. My wife and I wake up early most days to pray together, a wonderful way to start the day. One particular prayer-time, Emmanuel changed my/our response to this hurt and anger directed toward our neighbor. With Jesus’ help, we decided this event was going to become a blessing. Almost immediately, God filled our hearts with a new, but familiar, sense of gratitude; our healing began, as we started to see these events differently. With spiritual eyes restored, the restoration of our moon-scape hill was going to become blessing for all. We considered that we’d be employing: city employees, landscape designers, garden suppliers, delivery people, and creating a way to bring dear friends over to help us. Bonus, our neighbor was going to get a beautifully crafted landscape to look at when we finished. Truism ~ roots get nicked. We believe that Emmanuel helps us mend broken fences, and rebuild relationships that have become nicked and possibly overgrown with tough bark. Epiphany - some seemingly large problems can actually be from very small nicks, and asking Our Lord Jesus to help, He can walk us through. Thank you Emmanuel for healing, guiding and leading us to health and right relationship.
Dn Joe Frederick
