If a tree were capable of reflection
Would it have doubts about its growth?
Would it worry endlessly
About the direction it should take,
Or when it should produce new leaves?
Would it sometimes imagine that its life was without design?
Would it think that its height and shape
Had been self-determined
Through random acts of will
Amounting more to good luck
Than good management?
Because that's what I'm like.
True, I feel God working in my life,
But at no given time
Is the direction clear to me.
I seem to have so many decisions
To make about the future
That I'm always concerned
About choosing the wrong thing.
But then, just as I imagine
That I'm acting out of confusion,
I stop and look back
On my journey until now.
What do I see?
From my birth to the present time
There is a clear straight path.
Everything I thought was deviation,
Everything I counted as unnecessary,
Missed, wasted, wrong, foolish,
Is part of that straight path.
I see that an infinitely loving God
Has used every thread of my life
To weave a perfect fabric of truth.
Don't ask me how.
In awe, I surrender my confusion,
Knowing only these two things:
That as long as I choose to grow,
My loving God will take care
Of the other choices in my life;
And that as a tree must grow towards light,
So must I grow towards God.
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