Fenced In

While cleaning garage gutters one vibrant autumn day, I glanced down from my perch atop a ladder to view a seemingly impossible sight. Doubtful, I descended to inspect what appeared to be an iron rod poking up from the interior of a tree. Upon further investigation, I discovered this iron rod to be the end piece of a chain link fence separating my property from the neighbors. The fence disappeared into the tree on one side and remarkably re-emerged out the other. The tree had completely incorporated the fence into its trunk and yet both tree and fence appeared healthy and strong.
I pondered the flexibility of nature—the adaptability and generosity of a tree adjusting to a manmade fence—refusing not to grow. How like God was this tree, flexing and adapting to the many fences I construct of whimsical notions and fanciful desires; refusing to be stopped; completely surrounding me with love no matter how inflexible I appear.
How good God is to disappear inside of us, at times almost invisible, and yet to reemerge and show God's self in unexpected ways, often on the other side of our frivolous attempts to find something more meaningful than God. But God outwits every obstacle, adapting to our needs, growing around our demands, penetrating through us, often sending us what we need in spite of ourselves.
Someday, if the tree keeps growing and surrounding the fence, the rod will be completely embedded within the tree. Is that how God is with us, I wondered, growing around us with barely a notice, so busy we are, so hectic we live, so fast is our pace, so blind to God's presence, and so deaf to divine whispers? God grows up with us, totally surrounding us, until one day we wake to find that we have been completely and totally absorbed by God. God, the great vine; we, the wily branches.
Dr. Constance M. Popp