Bare Branches

Bare Branches

I’m not sure when the last leaves fell from the tall trees in the yard; Houston winters aren’t harsh enough to pinpoint a single killing frost. The leaves simply seemed to let go. Now I’m seeing birds I never noticed before: ten, twenty, thirty at a time, perched in branches listing in the breeze. They’d been there all along, but because I was focused on something else, they were invisible to me.

I was reminded of those “invisible” birds and bare branches during dinner with a dear friend—the kind of friend whose presence makes you breathe easier. A friend whose voice is a comfort, and whose heart has long been open to mine. She is a widow now. Parts of her world that were once lush and full are now emptier, more bare. She is a teacher of the Word—one of my favorites. One whose love and wisdom I’ve striven to emulate. (She smiles sometimes and says her student has surpassed her, but I don’t believe I ever will.)

“How has what you’ve been through recently changed your teaching?” she asked me as we nibbled plates of Middle Eastern food and caught up with one another’s struggles.

I didn’t answer right away. I wanted to find the right words. But I knew the truth almost instantly. “Everything is closer to the surface,” I told her. “Everything is more intense and real.”

“Anything else?” she wanted to know.

“Yes,” I said. “I love the people I teach more. Sometimes so much it hurts.” Then I asked her the same question.

“I cry a lot more,” she admitted. “And I see their hurts. Even the invisible ones. But I want to tell them the truth, even when it’s hard. There’s no room for platitudes anymore.”

Bare branches show us things we never noticed before. Bare branches bring things into clearer focus—sometimes with an awful heart pang, but always with surprising clarity. And bare branches have a beauty all their own.

Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. . . . Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:14, 16, NASB