Each A Splintered Branch
by Donavon L Riley

Even the fallen find their place; as the broken tree returns to the soil and feeds the earth, so Christ gathers the shattered into His hands, turning our wounds to life once more. — D.

+++ 

Look to the woods after a storm. See how the branches lie snapped and twisted among the moss. No hand sweeps them away; instead, they soften into the green, laced by fern and ivy, their edges rotting down to sweet-smelling earth. A felled tree rests where it falls, its heartwood splitting into shelters for beetles and burrows for foxes. In the wind-scoured fields, the frost-bitten stalks still hold seeds, cracked but spilling life into the ground. In nature, even the broken belong.

How often we forget this when looking at our own splintered hearts. We are quick to think that what is marred in us has no use, that what is wounded should be thrown away. Yet Christ sees it otherwise. The Gospels are a tale of fallen things finding their place. A Samaritan woman at the well, a tax collector perched in a tree, a thief nailed to a cross—each a splintered branch, each drawn into the folds of His mercy. In His hands, even the torn and trampled are made whole, turned to purpose greater than they could dream.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. These words are the cornerstone of His promise. There is no drift so far that His love cannot find us, no fall too great for His arms to hold. Just as the forest knows no waste and the field loses no harvest, so He leaves none outside His care. The scattered find home; the shattered find shape.

This is not a work we see done all at once, but it is done nonetheless. In the fields of His mercy, even the smallest seed, the most broken thing, is cherished and brought to fullness. Watch how the fallen things in nature turn to life again—how frost becomes dew, and ash feeds the roots of the next spring. Look, and believe: He is doing the same with you.