Good Timber

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the starts
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

Douglas Malloch

It is easy to get caught up in the turmoil of life, especially right now while the whole world seems to be caught up in it. If there is one lesson that life has taught me, it is that true reward never comes from ease. Why is that so often so difficult to remember? Mostly because when we are experiencing the crap, it is very difficult to see outside of it. You’re covered in the junk that is happening in your life right now and it is difficult to see past that.

If you look back on your life, you will always see that it is the difficulties of life that have shaped you. It is the difficult times, which may still hurt, that have made you who you are. You chose to grow from them! They molded you, and if it weren’t for those experiences, your grass would be nowhere nearly as green as it is with the added fertilizer which you used to till the ground and to enrich the soil!

So, in this time of turmoil, remember that you will become stronger from this experience if you let yourself grow from it. Use it to learn. Use it to grow. Do this, and you will be stronger than you ever knew you could be!