My Tree

My treeless backyard

 What I am about to share with you happened about five years ago.  Time flies and you would think I would have done something about it by now, but no.  (It will go on my list for the forty-second time.)  Ever since we moved into this house, we have had tree trouble.  We planted a silver maple in the middle of the front yard, and it got carpenter ants and died.  I decided to leave it bare as the kids would use our yard for a ball field.  Our house sits back on the lot, making the front yard bigger than the back.
I planted a small Texas Umbrella tree in the back yard.  It was only about two feet high.  These trees are supposed to grow quickly and it did.  In two years, it was about thirty feet high. I was thrilled.  I bought a baby swing to hang from a branch for my grandkids to swing in.  It shaded my house and I pictured many happy climbings for years to come in that tree.
The twins were little at the time, and I had gone with my daughter-in-law, Shannon to take them for a check-up.  We were on our way home when Tommy called me.  "Why is all this wood in front of our house?" He asked.  I told him I had no idea what he was talking about.
After a few minutes, he called back.  A man had stopped his truck, gotten out of it, and proceeded to apologize to Tommy.  It seems that his tree company had been hired to cut down the tree on North Park Ridge.  (We live on South Park Ridge)  Same kind of tree.  Tommy told him it was no problem, though the man offered to pay us back somehow.  Then he called me and told me the news.  Shannon thought someone had died.  I was so tearfully mad.  That was MY tree!!  How could he have let that happen!!
Fortunately for the man, we were miles away.  As I drove home - sobbing like a baby - God began to speak to my heart to forgive.  I did not want to.  
Tommy warned the man that there was a problem, after all.  (I am sure he was afraid of what a maniacal woman might say when she got home.)  I wanted him to pay us the 800 dollars he would have gotten for cutting down the right tree.  I wanted him to plant us a new tree.  I wanted SOMETHING.  But inside me, I could feel that I was to ask for no recompense.  Really, God?
When I got home, I called ___________ Tree Service ( as he had already escaped while he could) and talked to the man.  He wanted to do something for me.  He begged me...really, he did.  I told him there was a Crepe Myrtle running amuck at the other end of the yard and he could get rid of it for me.  He was happy to oblige.

I told him we were Christians and that we have to forgive because of what Christ has done for us.  He said he knew it. The people on North Park Ridge had told him that Tommy was a pastor - (when he went to tell them why he didn't cut down their tree on that day)  WHEW!  Thank God I didn't rant and rave like an idiot.  How our neighbors on the other street knew we were Christians, I do not know, but I could have ruined our testimony with a single shot.
Okay, remember what I was supposed to do?  Nothing, but forgive.  Well, that Crepe Myrtle has grown back, rowdier than ever.  It is a gentle reminder of all that happened on that day. I have not replanted.  It is on my list....again.

My reminder...of - oh, so many things.