When I was a boy as Christmastime drew near my Dad would always go up in the woods and pick out a small evergreen tree to cut down for our Christmas tree. One year I went with him and much to the annoyance of my brothers picked the most ugly, scraggly, pine tree known to man to be our Christmas tree. My Dad, however, in his love for me cut it down and decorated it, as bad as it looked. Then after the new year arrived he took it outside and dropped it near the edge of the woods to decompose. I watched it all through the winter with a little sadness as its needles turned brown and fell off. I really wished it could have lived longer and grown taller.

When I was a young married man with kids of my own we spent one Christmas at my Father- in-Law’s house and discovered that instead of cutting his evergreen tree down he had dug it up and put it in a large pot filled with dirt. He watered it and cared for it all through the Christmas season and then replanted it in his backyard to enjoy and watch grow in the years to come.

These days my Christmas tree is artificial and all of the evergreens in the woods are safe from me. Instead of chopping down or buying one each year I look at them growing fifty and sixty feet tall in the woods around my home. How beautiful they look when the snow falls on their limbs. And when the coldest and darkest days of Winter arrive they remind me that life, growth, and love continue on even while the other trees slumber. They help to keep my heart bright and my spirits light until Spring comes again.

I think God gave us all of these evergreens in the forests for a special reason. He gave them to us to remind us of life during the darkest days of Winter. He gave them to us to encourage us to share our beauty, light, and love as well. He gave them to us to show us that life, growth, and love are eternal. May we always welcome their beauty into our hearts.