When It's Over

The dead tree in my backyard has kind of a stark beauty that makes me reluctant to cut it down. The other morning, as I looked out of my bedroom window at the newly-greening lawn behind my house, I noticed that the tree wasn’t as ugly as I had remembered. True, there are still no leaves, no hope of new life. But the white bark, the red-tipped branches, and even the dead brown patches on the trunk looked oddly attractive with the living lawn as a backdrop.  

But of course, I do not see the tree with anything approaching objectivity. I loved that little tree before it died. It was the sole source of shade for a back patio that grows uncomfortably hot as the sun, unhindered by an extra mile of atmosphere that shields homes at lower elevations, ruthlessly punishes the back of my house each day. 

Now the tree is useless. It will not join the other trees in the neighborhood this year, which are bearing new leaves at a surprising rate. (I always find it astonishing how dormant trees can leap from winter into spring in what seems like a matter of hours.) It is dead. It will have to be removed.

Truth be told, it was almost dead last spring, too. (I blogged about it then, too.) Less than one-half of the tree produced any foliage, and I had sadly resigned myself to amputating it from the landscape a full year ago. Someone who knows infinitely more about gardening than I do persuaded me to wait. "Give it another year," she told me. "Sometimes, if the next winter isn’t as harsh, trees can make a comeback."

It was a bit of hope I glad for, and now I am faced with the same reluctant choice. The last snow dump of the season demolished what was left; large branches broke off in every direction. 

It is still sadly beautiful, but it will have to go.  

It breaks my heart.

But it is just a tree. Imagine the heartbreak in heaven over the human race when the waiting is finally finished—when it becomes clear that those who will come back to their Heavenly Father already have, and the rest will never do it. They will never produce leaves; they will never bear fruit.

How long will God hold out, hoping that the rest of His children will come back home? How much will it hurt when it becomes obvious to the heavenly host that they won't?

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)