In the Tree

I have never climbed a tree.
I never had a burning desire to go tree climbing.
I do not have any regrets.
I love trees, and admire their beauty, but I do not have to climb them.

A friend of mine shared a picture of her daughter.
There was a bike leaning against a large tree.
Up in the tree, where the branches make a natural V shape, her daughter sat.
Her daughter had a few books at her feet with one book in her hands.

My friend’s daughter was reading her book in the tree.
As I read some of the comments, I saw that my friend must have done a similar thing as a girl.
It was a precious picture.
The reading part I understood; I could not relate to the tree climbing.

I thought of my daughter, who is the mother of our granddaughter.
When she was growing up, we lived in a house we built in the woods.
The trees were very tall with no low branches to climb.
However, my daughter had an affinity to one tree in particular.

It was a tree in which there appeared to be a little Hobbit door.
My daughter loved that tree.
That tree held even more meaning to her, and to me, as she grew.
That tree was where her alter ego lived.

I never knew that tree had a story until one afternoon.
This particular daughter had a very strong will.
That strong will served her well as she got older and became a teacher.
However, as a little girl, her strong will needed to be trained with boundaries.

I do not even remember what the issue was on that day.
However, after being disciplined, she came to give me a hug.
Mommy, I am your good girl.
The bad girl lives in the tree.

I wanted her to explain.
I wanted her to show me where her “bad” alter ego lived.
We walked outside.
She pointed to the little Hobbit door in the tree.

Any mother knows how very hard it is to keep a straight face at times.
You want to laugh at some of the things your children say.
You know that it is wiser not to laugh at that moment.
This was one of those moments.

Apparently, the little girl who occasionally got in trouble would come and go.
Her alter ego would come inside just to ruffle a few feathers.
The good girl banished her to the tree.
The little Hobbit door in the tree was the access.

I look back on that time now and realize that my daughter was drawing conclusions.
She was formulating, in a childlike way, the nature of sin.
She did not know she was doing that at the time.
She just knew that her “bad” self appeared every once in a while and needed to be removed.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
(Romans 7:15-20)

I thought of all of this when my daughter and I went to lunch.
She was telling me things that my sweet granddaughter is doing.
She was telling me things that she is working on already as she teaches her daughter.
It caught me by surprise; I never realized we would have to say, NO, this early, she admitted.

It’s like she has this good and bad side.
She stopped and looked at me.
Kind of like the tree outside our house? I asked her with a twinkle in my eye.
How did I come up with that? She asked, since she knew to what I was referring.

How indeed?
Eternity is written on our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11); we do know right from wrong.
Many deny it, but the Truth is in us.
God’s Truth is our standard.

My daughter had that sense in her own little girl’s heart.
She wanted to do the right thing, so she banished her “sinful” self to the tree outside.
That may be cute in a child, but many adults do the same thing.
Many adults try very hard to clean themselves up and pull up their own bootstraps.

Doing that, is no more than banishing your sinful nature to the Hobbit door in the tree.
We cannot save ourselves.
We cannot clean ourselves up to meet the standards of a Holy God.
We need help from outside ourselves.

We need a Savior.

Jesus was banished, outside the city. (Hebrews 13:12)
Jesus hung on a cross for our sins.
Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Jesus went through the Hobbit door, on a tree, in our place.

Lord Jesus, You were banished in our place.
You went to the Tree for us.
You are the Door, the one way to the Father.
You took our sin on Yourself and gave us Your righteousness.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

2 responses to “In the Tree”

1. Love this, Gina! Thank you, Lord, indeed!

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   • Carin,
     I am so delighted that you were blessed. How grateful I am for our Lord Jesus.
     Gina

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