March 2, 2007 4:25 PM
Building stronger relationships - part 2
This is something I published a number of years ago - which goes with what I wrte about this morning:
STRONGER WHEN BROKEN
“Tripp, you need to come home right away,” I pleaded as soon as my husband answered his work phone. “There’s a crazy person cutting off the branches of our trees!”Twenty years ago we had just moved from suburbia proper to the country. It seemed like every day I was dealing with something new – like the morning I rose to find a dozen cows standing on our driveway, or the first afternoon the wind shifted and the fragrance of freshly fertilized fields swept into our little piece of paradise.
That day it was the furious buzz of a chain saw that interrupted my peace. I was used to chain saw noise – after all, my husband was an arborist. Which made me even more horrified to find a red-flanneled macho man hacking away at the branches of a row of 70' cypress trees lining our side of the fence.
“Hey!” I yelled, “What are you doing to our trees?”
“Lady, they may be your trees, but my uncle doesn’t want these branches hanging over his property anymore.”
Living in the country, it can take a while to get around to meeting your neighbors. Now I wished I had made more of an effort to meet the “uncle” who was our neighbor to the north.
“Can you wait ‘til I call my husband? I don’t know much about trees, but he does. I think he should be in on this.”
The chain saw was buzzing before I even made it back in the house.
“Just try to calm down, Barbara.” Tripp was saying now. “I’ll be right there.”
Tripp’s taller and braver than me (though I’ve often thought if I were taller I’d be braver too). He parked his truck in front, slammed the door, then strode the quarter mile upslope to our neighbor’s house. Waiting anxiously at home, I finally heard a welcome silence. The chain saw had stopped.
Still I waited. Dusk was gathering and I was starting dinner when I finally heard Tripp at the front door.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Not much.”
I just kept looking at Tripp so he would know he wasn’t finished.
“Well, at first he was pretty mad – thought we were interfering. But I told him it’s the wrong season to trim evergreens. If we cut the trees now, the sap will attract beetles and beetles can kill these trees. We agreed to wait ‘til fall, then I’ll do the trimming myself. That way the trees will stay healthy.”
I waited for more.
“I think we’ll be good friends.” Tripp said, pulling off his boots.
“Why in the world would you think that?” I asked. “We hadn’t even met until today and everyone was pretty upset.”
“Yeah, but we worked it out together. I think when you’ve been through a conflict with someone and resolved it, your relationship will be much stronger in the end.”
A few weeks later something happened that brought that message home again.
With my four little boys – all under five – I’d taken our kite into the field to fly. The day was sparkling and the wind was just right. I was running backwards, tugging at the kite, coaxing it to commit to the sky. Then suddenly I was flat on the ground looking into Joshua’s worried eyes. What had happened? Where was I?
Josh was crying it was his fault. He’d run behind my legs and I had tripped over him. Now, reaching up to reassure him, I felt a searing pain in my left arm. My hand was dangling from the wrist at an angle that made me sick to see.
I’m a baby when it comes to pain. Carrying my left hand with my right, I bawled all the way back to the house to dial 911, then all the way in the ambulance to the hospital. (The sheriff’s department came out to take care of the boys ‘til Daddy got home).
Through two summer months in a hot, heavy cast from fingers to shoulder, I worried that my broken wrist would never be the same.
Finally, as the doctor was sawing off the cast, I asked him how I could compensate for my weakened joint.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry. When a broken bone is healing, it lays down more bone material. The wrist that was broken will actually be stronger than the one.”
Just like my husband, my doctor was right.
And so, ever since, I’ve kept this principle in mind. The more calamities I live through, the more proof I see. Whatever is broken, God can make stronger than it was before. We just have to be willing to receive the healing.
Posted in Inspiration | Permalink
Comments
That is so awesome! How cool to see the metaphor acted out in your life like that. (Sorry it was painful, though!)
Posted by: Michelle Potter | March 2, 2007 4:54 PM
It's posts like these that make me a faithful reader of your work, Barbara. This was inspiring.
Posted by: Spunky | March 2, 2007 7:39 PM
Thanks, that was perfect timing. I needed to hear that.
Posted by: Amy Lu | March 2, 2007 11:01 PM
I REALLY needed this today!
Thank you!
Posted by: Kathy, Jeff's Wife | March 5, 2007 9:35 AM
this was awesome barbara! i was just encouraging a friend about this same type of principle! in our first years of marriage, hub had an affair with my best friend. it was ONLY by GOd that we survived that and went on to have a, "surprisingly" healthy, happier, more trusting marriage now. i have in the past related it to our flesh...scar tissue is stronger than normal tissue. yes we bear these "scars", but we are also stronger from them as well. i was not aware that bones did the same thing! God is just so amazing...this body, this earth, how all of his creation declares "Him and His ways" to us...even the ways things heal! thanks!
~Kristy in England
Posted by: kristy | March 5, 2007 10:52 AM
