“For a tree to become tall it must grow tough roots among the rocks.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
We’ve been having dry and hot, very hot weather here in Kentucky. It’s weather a lot of others in the country are sharing. In a stretch of ten days we set seven record highs and went over 100 degrees many of those days. And that’s without those heat indexes that can make us feel even hotter. We didn’t need anything to make us feel hotter. While it was hot, the wind kept blowing. That helped us when we were out in the scorching sun, but it didn’t help the plants and trees. The wind whipped any remnants of moisture right out of them. Even the ironweeds out in the fields looked wilted, and there’s a reason they are called ironweeds. Almost nothing can bother them. A friend had a digital thermometer that he could point at things and see the temperatures on that surface. He said the asphalt was 169 degrees. The black rocker on my deck topped out at 140 degrees. A real hot seat!
It’s no wonder then that some of the trees are losing leaves as if it were October instead of July. Most of the leaves on the tree in the picture above are yellow, worse than its brother trees down the fence row. There’s a reason for that. It’s growing near a wet weather spring–a place where there is plentiful moisture most of the time. So the tree never had any need to put down deeper roots. Now its shallow roots can’t reach the moisture stored deeper in the ground.
People can have trouble too when their roots are shallow and suddenly they enter a drought period in life. A time when troubles come, when the good things of life are no longer easy to reach. But people have the advantage over my stressed out little tree. It no doubt is trying to shoot out longer roots but it takes time for a tree to grow those roots. It takes people time to put down roots too but they can find plentiful help in showers of blessings even in a time of drought. Clinging to those blessings of faith and trust in the Lord can help us stand strong when the harsh winds of troubles blow against us. We aren’t promised no troubles, but we are promised One who will stand with us through the droughts of life.
I hope you are being showered with blessings and not in any kind of drought. Some things have been difficult for me this summer, but other things have been very good. I’m excited about The Gifted being out for readers and love hearing from you. I’m getting ready to have my Hometown Book Celebration this Sunday at my local library. If you live in the area, come on out. We’ll have a good time talking books and I’ll have door prizes. I like giving things away. That’s why I’ve got the Celebration Giveaway going on my website and you’ve got a few more weeks on the Fresh Fiction giveaway too. Fun prizes in both.
Thank you for reading.
Kind hearts are the gardens,
Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the flowers,
Kind deeds are the fruits.
Take care of your garden
And keep out the weeds,
Fill it with sunshine
Kind words and kind deeds.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow