THE TREE LIMBS

My friend, Dan, lives in a quaint house which I call his Norman Rockwall bungalow. It is a craftsman style house and is located in a wonderful historic section of Dallas.

He has towering pecan trees in his backyard and I have been the blessed recipient of his pecans many times since we have been seeing each other.

Last night we were caught in a traffic jam and we began exploring topics which could interest us more than the blasted traffic which was crawling along at the speed of a snail.

Dan had mentioned to me previously that he had a story to tell me about tree  limbs. As we sat in traffic  he asked if I wanted to hear it.

“I would love to hear it,” was my reply.

He started the story as the lights from the car ahead turned red.

“I was driving through Dallas one day and as I when I was on Forest Lane I heard a huge bang and felt something hit my car. I got out of  the car and looked at the damage. There was a dent in the front of my car and my right rearview mirror had been knocked out.”

“That sucks,” I thought,” because he only had the car for a couple of years.”

“If that limb would have fallen differently it would have taken out a window or crashed through my sun roof.” He went on with apparent thankfulness.

“Then when I was on another trip to Iowa to see my mother, I had my brother watch my house and take care of my animals.” He slowed down again to avoid the back end of a car ahead. “My brother was over at my house and he called me because I had no electricity at the house.  He went outside to check the backyard and saw that a limb had fallen and the electrical feed to my house had been severed.  A live wire had landed on my dry deck.” He tightened his fingers around mine as we held hands.

At this time I am thinking that those pecans are nice but golly gee I don’t need them as much as I need Dan and when I can afford a chain saw….

“You know if my brother had not been there at that specific time my house would have started on fire. The deck was dry and hot because it was in the middle of a Texas summer and the wire was live.” His face relaxed in a smile. “I asked my brother to stay there until I was home and the wire was fixed by the electrical company within an hour.”

At this point in time I am thinking that God is involved in this limb thing. I mean after all it is my belief that he created them, so timing on when a limb falls down should be within His arena of expertise. Right?

Then a few weeks later a huge limb came down in the middle of his yard and took out his left rear view window on his car. Obviously God has a problem with rearview mirrors because if you haven’t noticed He has always had Dan’s back.

Throughout this story Dan was worshiping God. Praising Him with thankfulness not for the dents and the damage to his car but for what could have happened which clearly didn’t.

It is a gift of God to have a heart of gratitude and this gift can open the door to a life full of miracles.

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