Blessings in Disguise Part 2 or How God Knocks Down a Tree

I wrote this three weeks ago with the intention to immediately get back to polishing it up and posting it. Instead life happened and blogging seemed to be the thing that got pushed aside. While this is old news, its too good a story about God's grace to pass by.

Yesterday afternoon we went up to Boulder where I had an appointment with my MCS doctor. While we were in Boulder, storms with wind and rain came through the areas. We returned home to find the wind had downed the lightening-killed maple tree and landed it in our next door neighbors' yard, resting atop the high board wood fence. We had scheduled two arborists to give us bids on removing this lightening-charred maple skeleton, as well as a few other trees from our over-planted yard. But God had other plans that far exceeded our own.

Amazingly nobody was hurt and absolutely nothing was damaged. It was as if the hand of God had gently laid it to rest on the fence and the ground. Our Vietnamese neighbor, Tim, had went into the house moments before it landed on the patio where he had been standing.  The tree extended over one of Tim's numerous fish pond in his lovely backyard Asian garden, yet it did not ruffle a feather on his glazed ceramic duck ornaments resting on the edge of the pond. A terracotta pot was gently swept aside by the branches on the patio without a crack. God's protective care was evident.

 

Joel immediately went out and rented a chain saw so we could quickly clean up the mess in their yard before daylight left. The clearing went quickly with the the chainsaw and Tim's help. While I was praying nothing was damaged and that our neighbors we barely knew would not be angry or sue us, God was knocking down more than trees. The tree toppling and our immediate response to clear it, broke down all walls and instead we were invited to attend a family birthday party the following day for their granddaughter.

We have four mahogany-leafed Choke Cherry trees about thirty feet tall that we were going to remove ourselves, so Joel began working on that Friday evening after we got the other tree cut and into our yard so quickly. Suddenly, a man appeared in our side yard with his two Labradors. He had heard the chainsaw noise and came over to investigate. In the course of our conversation we discovered Stan lived on the next street and wondered if he could have the bigger chunks of wood for his wood burning stove. He then offered to come over Saturday morning with his chain saw and help Joel with our project in exchange for the wood. We were even more delighted to find out Stan and his wife were also Christians.

Saturday morning before Stan arrived, the first arborist came and gave us a bid for the tree removal and pruning we were wanting done. His total was over $1200 before any stump grinding. Yikes! We realized then the more work we do ourselves the better! But those twenty year old silver maples two feet from the fence still seemed too risky for us to do on our own.

Stan arrived and when he found out we wanted to take those maples down, he shared that he is a landscape architect for the state and had forty years experience in that and as an arborist. He said he could easily walk Joel through safely felling the trees and would direct him how to do pruning in the golden locust and huge elm tree out front. Joel and Stan got the trees all down without any incident even with the discovery of a large wasp nest in one of the maple trees. Our back yard was soon a gargantuan brush pile!! The blue spruce and lilacs that were hidden by the other trees now are visible, as well as our mountain views from the second story!

Joel and Stan cutting trees

I was so thankful Stan was there to help Joel Saturday.  The night before, I momentarily forgot that I was chemically sensitive and helped Joel as he used the gas-powered chainsaw. I ended up with nasty reactions to the exhaust that took several hours and numerous medications to get under control. Our trip to Boulder Friday afternoon was so I could try Myers Cocktail and Glutathione IVs to see if they would reduce my reactions.  They made a difference, in spite of severe reactions, I rebounded much more quickly than normal.

So, God used the wind to down a tree in a manner that enabled us to get to know two families in our new neighborhood and saved us a boatload of money! What initially seemed like a disaster were definitely blessings that helped open up doors to get to know our neighbors and save us money! God is so good!!!

Blessings to you all!

Deb