Some might be disappointed, but this is not one of those quizzes like I see posted on Facebook. (There actually is one of those quizzes with this same title, but I didn’t take it because I was afraid that the results would show that I was Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree).
Ten or twelve years ago, let’s just say eleven, Mary and I were shopping at Home Depot. After finishing our shopping in the store, we wandered out to the garden department to look for some small trees. It was November, and most of the plants were marked down because they were making room for Christmas trees.

Mary got hung up looking at wreathes and other boring items, so I cruised my wheelchair over to go look at trees. As it turned out, there were not many trees left, and I didn’t see anything I was interested in. Just when I was about to return to Mary and tell her not to bother coming over there, I spotted a tiny tree that was hidden behind two huge trees. With the footrest of my wheelchair, I pushed one of the large tree pots aside so I could get a better look at the little tree.

The tag on the tree identified it as a Bald Cypress, but it just looked like a two foot high vertical stick that sprouted a few tiny horizontal twigs. Other than a few yellowed leaves, there was no foliage on it at all; it was pitiful. But, it was marked down to only five dollars.

About that time, Mary walked up and assumed that I was looking at one of the large trees in front. Before I even noticed that she was there, I heard her voice, “That won’t fit in the van.”

ALS had already robbed me of my ability to speak, so I kicked the pot of the scrubby tree in back so she would know what I was looking at. After bending to see beneath the foliage of the trees in front, she rolled her eyes and began to walk away, thinking that I was joking.

When she finally figured out that I was serious about buying the tree, she dug it out and put it in her shopping cart. Couples (hopefully) learn to pick their battles after years of marriage and I’m sure she figured that a five dollar tree wasn’t a battle worth fighting. But I’m also sure that she felt vindicated when the cashier joined her in laughing at the tree.

After getting home, we looked for a place to plant the pathetic little tree. We finally agreed to plant it between the shed and our neighbor’s fence (I don’t remember, but Mary probably chose that spot because it was kind of hidden). After planting it, I had her place rocks around it so the men that mow our yard didn’t run over it thinking it was a weed.

“He (Jesus) presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven (the Christian life) is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree…” (Matthew 13:31-32)

I didn’t have the ability to voice it at the time, but I was in total agreement with Mary and the cashier that the tree was pathetic. But I wasn’t focusing on the tree itself, I was looking at the picture of a mature Bald Cypress on the plastic tag that was attached to the stick-like trunk of the tree.

As Jesus said in the parable above, the walk of faith begins so small; like my tree, the beginning of our spiritual life is often pathetic. There will be storms that batter us as we grow, but if we remain focused on Christ and on the picture of what God designed us to be, we will conform to that image – just like my tree conformed to what I envisioned it to be:

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin…” (Zechariah 4:10)