THE LIFE & TESTAMENT OF AN APPLE TREE

Beginning with the Ground:

I was a dry and broken land, screaming out at the top of my lungs; Fill me! Give me Life! The essence of my being cracked to my core, I was falling apart. I could stand for nothing... and withstand none. I looked to the sky sure that I had been heard as I waited for the rain to come. After all- that was all I needed! Nothing more and nothing less!

Instead of rain I felt a shift in my being, I thought the change was coming- but only a pebble did. Dark, hard, dry. I knew this could not pull me back together or restore this desert land. So I sat, sure that all I had been and all I could ever be was done for.

The days faded and I never got an answer. Rather than rain or silence, something began to stir within me. This pebble began to stretch, began to move, and I realized; I had not been given a burden, I had been given life. It was a seed; and I the dry land it's roots would fill and hold together. I, the land, this seed, this life would give purpose to. Without it I was nothing; with it, I was a fruitful land. No longer just a desert, no longer confined to this brokenness. No, the same way this seed pushed through to become, I was too. I was evolving, changing. The long, lost desert was becoming an orchard.

The rain did not come for a long time. If it had come when I asked it would have fallen right through me- slipped through the cracks. I would have soaked it all up and then slowly, surely returned to what I had always been. But once life came to me! My dry, broken land began to be filled! I was held together and had hands to hold. So when the rain came- I soaked it all up and held it there. I wasn't just satisfied, I was filled to the very core of my being. More than fulfilled, I was fruitful! The cries of the broken land had been heard after all.

And this is how it began, The Life & Testament of an Apple Tree.

Beginning from the Seed:

I didn't know if I could be anything. When I asked to be seen, to just be, I was put underground.

“I have prepared a place for you.” he said. Eagerly I had followed to see the beauty that surely awaited me. And all I found was a hole in the ground. “Get in my beloved and prepare to live!” I stared in bewilderment, what was I? A fool?! What of the promises made? That I could be somebody, that I could be something beautiful, something fruitful in this world full of lesser things! “Just wait and see.” he said. Stepping in, I sunk into the hole. Deep and dark it embraced me as I sat waiting.

The answer was clear. I being nothing… was for nothing. I had seen others become so much more outside of themselves and others fail to do so. I supposed that I was the one that would never try or fail. I was a seed lost underground. I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I proposed it was nowhere and still I didn’t quite know where nowhere was. After all, it was dark where I sat and hard to figure out what was going on above ground. I didn’t realize that where I was, was not where I would forever be. And what I was had absolutely nothing to do with what I could become- it was the process that determined that. Dying, breathing, wondering, what would become of me? What would become of promises made?

Seconds passed to minutes, as minutes ticked into days… All track of time was lost. Suddenly I began to stretch and in confusion, I figured the world must be upside down. I wasn’t supposed to go this way! I was supposed to go up! Standing on my own two feet discontent at this turn of events, I started fighting and I started stretching. Up, up, up! I reached for more and as I did the darkness broke around me.

It was day again!

And I, I was no longer a simple seed, but alive! I couldn’t have known that dying would bring me to life like this. Nor that the deeper my roots would reach, the farther my branches would rise. And yet, I would have been a fool to believe any less of my Creator.

Overjoyed at who I was becoming, I sat where I was and continued to grow. I waited for the world to experience the same growth I had but all that remained around me was dirt. Where I stood was fruitful… all around me, dry. Yet as time passed so did my thoughts. I saw the dirt and wondered if it was more than just a wasteland. Perhaps, it was waiting. Waiting for fruit, waiting to be sowed in to, waiting for seeds to cling to? I looked at the dirt and seeing it for all that it could be, I stepped out. Out of the box I came, out of the box the fruit came. And I, I danced. My feet sinking into the dirt and taking root. Before I knew it, it was more than a simple field and I, a simple tree.

We had become alive again.

We were an orchard.