A short time later, I happened to glance out the upstairs window. A tree in my yard had been uprooted, and was lying on the ground next to my side porch. The sight from the porch was surreal. I stood for a minute, wondering if I should trim back the thickly ice-encased branches to help free the phone and cable lines that were entangled in them. Suddenly, before my eyes, the lines collapsed.
So much for "at least I still have a phone."
I turned to my heavenly Father and said simply, "Please send me someone to help remove the tree from the yard, so I can get the phone hooked up again." In the afternoon, I visited friends who kindly let me make phone calls and send a few emergency e-mails from their house. One of the calls was to some farmer friends from church -- I asked if they could put out the word for me about the tree.
When I got home, I found my next-door neighbour and a friend in my back yard, sawing off the tree branches with a chainsaw. I very much doubt my neighbour is reading this, so I will be bold to add that this is not a neighbour who smiles at me much. Besides, my tree had bent a section of his fence. I wasn't expecting a very warm reception. Instead, my neighbour seemed happy to help, and gave me a big, beaming smile. I learned later that my farmer friend had stopped by and had seen my neighbour and his friend cutting the tree with a handsaw, and had said, "Do you have a chainsaw? If you could cut the tree right down, it would be a big help to Joan. My husband will come by later to get the wood." Her sweet straightforwardness still tickles me as I type this. Maybe part of the reason my neighbour smiled so joyfully at me is that he was so pleased and amazed to discover I had such a straight-up, salt-of-the-earth friend.
Her husband and son came a day or so later. They quietly worked away. In what seemed like no time (I didn't even have time to finish making them cookies), they had sawn the tree trunk and limbs into small pieces, and had neatly bundled all the branches and placed them into their truck.
Have a look again at that photo -- this is what the yard looked like when they arrived.
The next day, another kind friend from church came by to remove the remaining wood. He also cut the stump down further, so that there's virtually no evidence now of my ill-fated tree.
I am so grateful to everyone who helped -- the friends who cut and removed the wood, the friends who let me use their phone and computer, my neighbour and his friend, and others at church who offered help when they heard of my dilemma. I'm also deeply grateful to my beloved heavenly Father, who wasted no time in answering my request.
And not just that:
When the tree fell, it fell on the ground at an angle -- EXACTLY between my roof and my neighbours' roof. Several inches to the left or right, and I would have had to file an insurance claim to have one of the roofs fixed.
I am very literally wrapped in His love.
I've called this post "Farmers" because farmers amaze me. I realize in some ways I'm a mystery to a lot of them, and in some ways quite a few of them are a mystery to me. But I have a great deal to learn from farmers and other country people. Yes, the Lord gave me a demonstration of His faithfulness this past weekend. He also gave me several object lessons in what quiet diligence looks like.
Quiet diligence is a reflection of the character of God.