hey blog friends !
glad to see you here once again! these past few weeks have been SO full & i’m thankful to finally be here sharing with you again.
right now, home is georgia. yet again! but for the past two weeks our squad got the chance to serve with samaritan’s purse in louisiana, where hurricane laura stormed in a month before. & as a pacific northwest gal i had never seen this kind of devastation before. a lot was taken from these people. i was really glad to be there tangibly meeting some of their needs and bringing restoration to their homes, but i was even more excited about bringing restoration to their hearts.
we did a lot of work in dequincy, louisiana. i spent mornings & afternoons cleaning up debris, cutting fallen trees, moving tree pieces, tarping roofs, and listening to homeowners. at times it was difficult to see God’s heart in moving ridiculous amounts of leaves from one end of someone’s yard to another, but y’all He really kept meeting me at these peoples homes and in their hearts. it often felt trivial to me, but while i was moving leaves, Jesus was moving hearts. and jeeeeez does it get any cooler than that?
so maybe i can’t actually say that i did a lot of work in dequincy, louisiana. because God was truly doing the real work. the heart work.
being there made me think about trees (okay well to be honest, i already thought about trees quite a bit cause i really am the earth muffin my team calls me). & there’s a whole lot i could say about them, but for now i just want to touch on one. you’ll have to bear with me while i get a tad nerdy.
so obviously when you cut into a tree you get to see all the layers of the cross section (i could tell you what they’re all called, but i’ll spare you since i love you and i understand you’re probably not here for that). & each ring is a season of that tree’s life, so some are pristine & beautiful, but many have dents or scars. they get eaten by bugs, burned by fires and raged by weather.
here’s the cool part though: despite everything they continue to grow. all of it just becomes a part of their cross section, their story as a tree. & maybe you’ve guessed where i’m going, but God has revealed to me the parallel of our lives to this. He’s in the midst (& in the heartwood if you will 🙂 of my cross section, your cross section & the cross section of every homeowner we got to encounter.
“Jesus gave his disciples this parable: ‘Haven’t you observed the fig tree, or any tree, that when it buds and blooms you realize that the season is changing and summer is near?’” (luke 21v29-30)
all this to say that i got to see the softening of hearts. the planting of seeds. the movement of the holy spirit. the uprightness that God offers. the steadfastness of the Lord’s presence. the undeniable hope He offers. & i’m just really grateful & in awe of that reminder.
He is with us.
all the love,
erika
p.s. here’s me about to shred the gnar with a chainsaw !
