Captain Hook Tree

Today, I had the day off from work. I’ve been working like crazy and all I wanted to do all day was be outside. So somehow I walked 7 miles, half of which I walked at Radnor Lake.

This morning, I was listening to John Eldredge’s Pause app and it asked me to think about a place that reminds me of God and His splendor. Almost every time this app asks me that question I think of Radnor Lake. It’s been a place of refuge and escape for me since I moved to Nashville over two years ago.

When I’m at Radnor I always feel God’s presence around me or hear from Him in different ways. The breeze in the air or a deer crossing a path or a fish splashing across the lake. Something I hear or see at Radnor tends to always point me back to Jesus.

Today was no different. While I was walking along, I smiled because all of the trees were green with life, but I know soon the trees will be full of leaves in burnt orange and red colors. These trees took me back to a memory from childhood that I hadn’t thought about in a long time.

Growing up, my house was right next to a lot full of beautiful, tall trees and a small creek running through the backside of it. One day, my neighbors and I were playing on the trampoline and the ball we were playing with went over the net and into the woods. All of us were scared to go get the ball, so we walked over to the woods together. And that’s when we realized how much fun the woods could be.

We had wild imaginations and were constantly playing out stories we created ourselves. The woods were going to be the perfect place for us to continue to run wild with our stories.

In the woods, there was a tree that appeared to be in the shape of a hook. I still to this day have never seen anything like it; it was as if it had begun to fall over but continued to grow regardless of its wonky shape.

So we named it Captain Hook Tree. And if you stood on it and closed your eyes, it would take you to Never Land. My sister, our neighbors, and I would jump on the tree and transport ourselves to an alternate universe and play all day in Peter Pan’s world.

I don’t know why I don’t try and find the splendor in the every day, ordinary things just because I’m now older. Some people would have looked at that tree and thought something was wrong with it, but we in our childlike mindsets saw something more exciting, something original. Something God created and called it good.

Our minds are tricky places; we believe what we want to believe and we see what we want to see. What if we chose to see the extraordinary in the ordinary? I bet we’d find joy a lot easier in the days that feel monotonous.

I was reminded today of the significance in the ordinary and how it can shape our minds and our moments. I want to live a little more like that, seeing trees that look like they belong to Captain Hook and remembering God’s hand in all of it.

Where is God showing you something ordinary that might be worth much more than you could imagine? Where are you limiting God? Maybe He’s giving you something worth far more than what its external appearance shows. Maybe God, in His kindness, is giving you a gift that can only be received if you open your mind to the possibilities.

xo,

msv