ONE DAY many years ago, my husband and I bought a small spruce tree. We put it in a planter on our driveway, its useful role being to hide an ugly gas utility box and pipes.

For about five years, the small tree grew and served its purpose well.

Then one winter during a snow storm, the tree, still in the planter, fell over on its side in a harsh wind. There it lay, on the ground, covered in ice for weeks.

The snow melted and it stayed there, too heavy to turn upright. I’m embarrassed to say it stayed there for many months — one more nagging chore undone.

“We should just throw it away,” I finally said. It was getting brown and didn’t even look alive anymore.

My husband did not agree. He dragged the broken tree, which was about five or six feet high and encased in the planter, up a hill nearby. He pried it out of the planter and dug a hole. He plopped the scraggly, dried-up tree in the hole, cracking some of its branches as he did, and he watered it. I still said it would not survive. It looked weak and forlorn. It stayed that way for, oh, about two years.

We forgot about it and stopped paying any attention to it. We had a dead tree on our hill, that’s all. Then it started to grow upward and outward. That was more than ten years ago.

Trees do not have thoughts or feelings. They do not have wills or minds or consciences. They are not courageous or heroic or optimistic. They have nothing but vegetative interactions with the world. And yet they are still alive. They too engage in a battle for existence.

Even though they are not courageous or persevering or wise, they can represent these qualities in their ceaseless struggles and entanglements.

Today that tree is about 25 feet tall and at least ten feet wide at its widest. It is lush with dark green needles on bushy branches, with silver berries at this time of year. No photograph I could take would do it justice; it is that magnificent. On one of its inner branches, we recently hung a birdhouse. Wrens moved in about fifteen minutes later and they view this evergreen giant as their home. They fly back and forth all day long and like to communicate with each other or look down on their handsome house from one of the branches above. They thrive in its interior recesses, where no dangers can interfere with their busy days. It’s not hard to understand why ancient pagans viewed trees as gods — and why modern environmentalists do. This tree is that enchanting as it continually and invisibly moves upward and outward.

When I look at it, I am reminded how wrong I can be. I am also reminded that we never know how things are going to turn out. A tree is not wise, but this tree seems wise. We never know how things are going to turn out because we are not in charge, even of our own lives.

The Holy Spirit silently infuses existence with wisdom and love, especially when we least expect it. Our Redeemer would have left us in unbearable sorrow without our guide, our Paraclete. We don’t need to see trees or stones as gods anymore. The gentle dove sends his messages and uses nature to explain things. He once used tongues of fire to express his burning love. We must not give up even when all seems lost. That tree “waited” until it fully recovered from a traumatic shock. Then, its strength restored, it flourished — it became much more than it was. It came into its own and mastered its surroundings. It became not just a tree, but a work of art, a masterpiece.

When we are weak or tired or ill or defeated, we should not assume we will always be that way. We should not surrender to these conditions or let them penetrate our hearts. Wear defeat or pain like you would an old sweater when you are cold. It’s just a garment. It’s not you. Take it off when you are warm. You don’t need it anymore.

We should await that invisible rain, that gentle messenger, that cloak of insight, that guide to eternity. He will send us knowledge, understanding and strength. Our job when we are down is to trust in his divine workings, to remain sure that this force of love will not disappoint those who abandon themselves to him. For he is leading us slowly and mysteriously out of this world and into our own.

May our hearts be cleansed, O Lord, by the inpouring of the Holy Spirit, and may He render them fruitful by watering them with His heavenly dew.

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