i am a tree

My good friend Jeremiah introduced me to a beautiful song, ‘How He Loves Us.’ You should watch the video on his blog and read his post about it. (Disclaimer: In about 2 and a half weeks this song will probably be huge and possible overexposed, and I’m gonna look like a dork for writing about it. But as my older brother Kris would say, ‘Oh well.’)

What strikes me about the song is the creative language and imagery used to describe the utterly indescribable love of the Father. The beauty is not only in the writing, but in the truth that the writing is somehow able to capture. Lines like ‘If grace is an ocean, we are all sinking.’ And the first verse which says, ‘He is jealous for me. Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.’

Last weekend I took a quick trip down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks to visit my grandma on Harkers Island. With this song still ringing in my heart, I noticed something. I noticed the trees.

The trees on Harkers Island are flat out mangled. They are twisted and bent and often the branches look like they are all leaning in one direction instead of sprawling outward in different directions from the trunk. Like many coastal communities, HI has experienced the blunt power of hurricane force winds barreling up the coastline. Long after the gusts have died down, and the boards are taken off of the windows, and the gas prices return from their astro-adventure into the outer reaches of the earth’s atmosphere, certain signs stay behind. The trees still bear the marks…proof of the pathway of a violent storm… forever bent beneath the weight of the wind.

He loves like a hurricane. I am a tree. I am mangled up and twisted by the sheer force of unbridled Grace. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy, until I am utterly reshaped, unable to return to the stately posture I once held, when I once held my ground.