Gift #1164: The Natural Wonder of Trees

A friend of mine re-posted this on Facebook today entitled “Natural Wonders”.

“Every day a 40 foot tree takes in 50 gallons of dissolved nutrients from the soil, raises this mixture to its topmost leaves, converts it into 10 pounds of carbohydrates, and releases about 60 cubic feet of pure oxygen into the air”

That stopped me right in my tracks – every day a tree moves a massive amount of nutrients up its trunk and across all those branches to each and every cell in each leaf.  The sheer amount of metabolism of all those nutrients converting into energy is astounding!  And this happens every single day!  No committees or bureaucracies are needed to work out an action plan, no governmental agencies are involved to oversee the process… and am amazing amount of efficient growth takes place just because the tree is functioning as it was designed.

If you’ve visited my blog before you’ll know that I’m deeply in love with trees and consider them among the greatest ordinary miracles with which we share our world.  And after today I’m even more impressed.  It reminded me of my last post when I wrote about flowers being extras that God gives us as signs of His goodness.  Somehow knowing how much a tree accomplishes every day without any fanfare or noise comforted my heart too.  It’s been easy to get caught in the cacophony and chaos of the world – in all the grief, hate, and sin that we see evidenced every hour on the news.  Today, this brief post on Facebook about trees was a reminder to reset my heart.  As much as the world spins out of our comprehension, God has it under control and we can rest in Him.  He designed trees and our own bodies to flawlessly execute thousands of ordinary miracles every day in maintaining biologic processes that keep us alive.  And He allows us to learn, understand, and marvel at these wonders that reveal His care for us.

I hope today you find an ordinary miracle and that it will give you hope and strength for the beginning of a new week.

Blessings to you,

Sarah