The Magnolia Tree

The year was 2003 and we were in the midst of trying to sell our house and farm. Living at the same place for over 20 years was making it hard; I couldn’t picture living anywhere else. During this time, God started speaking to me about what to let go of and what to hold on to. He gave me an illustration of this using my magnolia tree in the front yard.
Several years before this, my parents gave me this magnolia tree to help fill our bare front yard. We planted it at what seemed like a safe distance from an oak and maple sapling as we wanted a yard full of trees. For years, the magnolia grew as did the oak and maple.
In 2000, I began to realize that the oak and magnolia were too close together; the branches were starting to touch. So we began pruning, mainly because I did not want to lose the magnolia tree for my husband considered the oak the more important of the two.
The next year, he pointed out that the trees were growing together and pruning would no longer help. The magnolia, however, was basically split into two halves so he cut the half off closest to the much larger and stronger oak. This gave them some much needed separation and I hoped would solve the problem.
2003 came and guess what? The trees had grown together again. Once again my husband suggested that we cut the tree down. I knew he was right but I just hated letting go of that tree. We cut it down and pulled up the stump and soon you could no longer tell that a tree had even been in that spot. The oak was allowed to flourish now and the yard looked better.
Later when I was alone, I mourned, feeling sadness over the loss of the tree. Why did I mourn over a tree, you might ask? It wasn’t the tree, really, but what it represented. It was planted and grew during a different time in my life, one in which my children were babies, my dad was still living and my husband had a different job. I went to another church than the one I now attend and life was just different. Things were changing rapidly at this stage in my life and it was difficult letting go of the way things had been. God had shown me, several years before however, that to go through a new door in life, you can’t hold on to the door knob of an old door.
As difficult as cutting that tree down was, I had to admit that it changed the whole look of our house and yard. The view was opened up and clearer than before. In our own lives, we have to realize that we cannot have the old and the new.
“No one puts a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:16-17 NKJV

Yes, we keep our foundation in Christ and many of our gifts and talents go to each new stage of our lives, but there are always things to let go of. It could be unfruitful relationships, ministry or job opportunities or old ways and mindsets. Being attuned to the Holy Spirit on what to hold on to and what to let go of takes spending time in the presence of God and in His Word. Many times God will use people to gently help you to see the time for change, as my husband did for me in regard to our tree.
As you begin this New Year, I urge you to grab hold of the new things that God will bring into your life. The past might have been good but still it is another time. God is a God of the present. He is doing a new work in our lives all the time and we need to get behind Him and His will. We need to be people of God who fellowship and serve together to further the kingdom of God in our community and not people chained to the past. God loves us and never asks us to let go of old things without the intention of replacing it with something better and more fruitful for the stage of our lives we are in. Happy New Year!!

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