Nature can often initiate divine reflection especially if you are paying attention. It provided me with such last week. I was visiting my local saw mill picking up a lumber order for my birdhouses. After loading the boards, I noticed the circular rings in the cross section of the logs waiting to be loaded on the saw. Each ring represents one year in the life of the tree. You don’t have to guess what I did. I counted the rings on one of the logs.

These rings are a record of the tree’s life. Their width indicates the growing conditions of that particular year. Wider rings suggest good conditions conducive to growth such as warm weather and plenty of rain. Narrow rings reveal the tree suffered that year from things such as drought, pests or cold weather. The innermost rings are the oldest while the outermost are the most recent.

The image of the rings moved me to reflect on my own life. There are certainly narrow and wide rings stretched across my compilation of life. Good years and bad years. Years of light and years of darkness. Years of planting followed by years of harvesting. The tree rings represented a history of good and bad similar to my own.

But throughout the thirty five years of the log rings I counted, the tree had survived them all. Now its life will continue as lumber for a birdhouse. A simple part of something good in blessing the life of another. A great lesson that life can continue on beyond the rings.