Good Timber Doesn’t Grow with Ease — Sunday ponderings

Just as time was running out for our first meeting at church today (it was testimony meeting where everyone can stand and share their thoughts about Jesus), Lucy stood up and headed up to the front to share her own testimony.

And every time she does this (it’s been a while, but she used to do it pretty much every Fast Sunday), she stands up there and speaks with such poise and shares such beautiful pearls from her heart.

Today she shared this poem we have memorized as a family:

GOOD TIMBER

by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

She shared the third stanza (bolded), and shared how she knows even though we have to go through hard things, they make us stronger.

I think she is willing herself with all her might to believe that right now, and I’m so grateful she’s got some grit because if she puts her mind to anything, that girl can make it happen.

I’m so grateful even for the slivers of understanding that yes, Good Timber surely does not grow with ease.

Our “broken branches show the scars,”

But we can make it through as we “hold counsel with the Stars.”

The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.

Sending out so much love this Sunday as you grapple with your own secret sorrows. May we all remember the wind has the power to make beauty from ashes.