My Ficus Tree and Me

You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
         You have cast out the nations, and planted it.
You prepared room for it,
         And caused it to take deep root,
         And it filled the land.

The hills were covered with its shadow,
         And the mighty cedars with its boughs.
She sent out her boughs to the Sea,
         And her branches to the River. – Psalm 80: 8-11

Today’s Reading: Psalms 79-80; Romans 11:1-18

My mom got me this nice ficus tree three years ago when I moved into a new apartment. When it arrived at my door it was all nice and sweet; the leaves were all green and full of life. It was a happy tree.

According to the brief instructions the tree was well suited to be an indoor tree. But I swear that thing wasn’t in my apartment more than a day before the leaves started falling off.

Sigh…

So in my typical nerd fashion I scurried to the internet to find out what the haps was. Turns out that shedding leaves is normal for this kind of tree, but it didn’t stop! At first it was a few here and there. Then, the leaves started falling with increasing regularity.

Man where is Rogaine for plants when you need it?

I got it a new pot, new soil, moved it to different areas in the apartment (with varying levels of sunlight), and all kinds of other things to try to save the tree. I knew it was all bad when an old friend came by and said that the tree looked sad…

No bueno…

And I could feel it too. Sure trees and plants may not have faces like animals do, but you can feel when they are sad or in pain if you pay close attention. For whatever reason I couldn’t figure out how to give it what it needed to grow. It got to the point of no return and finally I tossed it in bitter defeat.

It was a sad day.

I must have mourned that tree for several days, wondering, what in the heck I did wrong. Why couldn’t I save it? Why couldn’t I nurture it? It’s live was in my hands and I let it slip away.

I’ve come to realize that our dreams are the same way.

Most of us had dreams when we were children. We wanted to be doctors or astronauts or ball players. Some of those dreams we were not well suited for, but others were and are within our grasp. What happens though when you start to see leaves falling off of the tree off the branches of your dreams? Maybe you had an idea six month ago that you didn’t jump on. Maybe you had an idea for a TV show several years ago and now a new show popped on TV that is similar to it. Maybe you wanted to lose weight but got on the scale and found out that you gained five pounds in the last week.

These things can be discouraging. But much like a tree our hopes and dreams need to be nurtured so that they can grow.

We need to water them with encouragement and time. We need to put them in the good soil of hard work and perseverance. We need to expose them to the sunshine of our persistent faith.

But most of all we cannot give up.

Our dreams die only when our faith in them has dried up.

So keep the faith. Keep on marching. Don’t stop until the job is done. You can do it.

Let’s get it!