I had the wonderful pleasure of serving alongside my son this week.  We joined his school class and volunteered in a hard part of our town–strangely only three streets over from the home that my son grew up in.  I walked freely through a neighborhood I had once gotten on to my husband for driving through.  High school kids wandered the streets and we covered two blocks like locusts.  We prayed for the redemption of our city.

There is a clear line in this neighborhood.  One side of the street is on the mend, some bad things happen there but they aren’t smiled upon.  The other side of the street is bad news.  All those bad things go on and every eye turns blindly aside.

I crossed that street.  As I stood looking into a dilapidated one room shack that had long passed the derelict stage, I noticed something that has burned in my head since it caught my eye.  Four days and I’m still grappling.

In this dark place, where sin and lostness and hunger and poverty and abuse reign supreme, all the tree needed was a sliver of son.  I mean sun.

I bet this tree will be quite full and beautiful come spring.  It appeared very healthy.  All it took was the slightest crack between the boards to give it the freedom to burst out from under the darkness below and thrive in the sunshine. It didn’t even need to push the boards aside on it’s way out or afterward.  It didn’t assert itself once it had gained enough momentum.  It didn’t need to push it’s weight around or rearrange it’s surroundings.  It just needed what little it was offered.  And from those meager offerings, it built a solid foundation for something beautiful.

So often in my life I have thought that I would have something really great to offer…later.  After the kids are grown, when the debt is gone, when I have a little more time, after football season.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that I needed a little more conducive an atmosphere to really put forth something beautiful.

This tree will have gorgeous blooms soon.  It could be such a pretty thing in such a lost and hurting place.  If we can just get a little bit of Sonshine in there, it has all the room it needs to become something beautiful.

You don’t have to have the perfect pot with the perfect soil planted in the perfect measure of sunshine.  You just have to be willing to let Him grow you where you’re planted.

And He can make something really beautiful.