I remember going on drives at our yearly vacation to Lake Almanor around 6 or 7 o'clock at night. This was the highlight of my vacation. We'd spot deer, take a small stop at a local spring, and browse the local foliage. One time, one of my cousins went along with us on these night rides and said, "I don't get it. They're just trees." Even my sister uttered those same words when she was younger.
They're just trees.
I never understood why they felt that way. Looking out the window was exciting! At any moment, a stump could turn out to be a bear, a stick in the road could be a marmot, and a meadow could appear out of the middle of nowhere! They weren't just trees to me. They held adventure, sparked my imagination, and left me with a curiosity for wildlife! There were so many different types of trees, flowers, grasses, and animals in the forest. How did the trees get so tall? What kind of animals were living in them? These many questions ran through my head as we watched the trees run by.
As I got older, I learned to appreciate the trees more and more. I didn't know much about plants. I didn't even understand photosynthesis, yet I could appreciate the architecture of plants. It became a way for me to thank God. His creation was beautiful! If this is what Earth looked like, I could only image the wildlife in heaven!
Now that I've learned even more about plants and how the world runs in general, I am absolutely blown away by the complexity of that tree. Thousands upon thousands of organisms are depending upon that one tree. Mosses find a safe haven under its shade. Squirrels shield their offspring from predators in the protection of a hollowed out tree. There's mechanisms beyond any engineer that are occurring every microsecond. Its absorbing light and making its own food! Food! Can you do that? No, I don't think so.
Just a tree? Nope.
It's vulnerable. It's immobile. It depends on the sun to rise, on rain to fall, and on wind to carry oxygen. Who provides and makes sure all of these things happen? God does. This tree is a reminder of how God so closely watched over the world. If He can care for it, how much more will he care for me?
Plants are more than something to please our aesthetic. After learning about plants in my biology classes and reading gardening books, I'm eager to revisit places I've been to a million times before. To look with new eyes at things I've not been capable of observing all these years. I could spend hours now searching for mosses, grasses, trees, wildflowers, and algae at the small spring I've been to every year since I was a child. I could cruise along on our night rides until the morning scanning the hundreds of trees that pass by.
There's so much more to a tree than you may think. Plants are complex. They're God's way of telling you that you will be fine. Even He looks after the lilies of the field and that tree.
What is your plant story? How did you start to love plants? Tell me your #ponderyourplantyroots story!
Happy Planting,
