Single Parenting

BETTER THAN APPLE PIE

by Kari West

“Keep me as the apple of your eye ...” —Psalm 17:8

              Twelve years ago, with dreams of apple pie, I carved a hole in the hard clay of my country garden.  I pounded a stake and tied a one-gallon tree to it with a strip of insulated wire.  Over time, the tree continued to grow over and around the restrictive wire.  While cultivating a vegetable patch and picking flowers, I often paused to ooh and awe at the apple blossoms with an eye toward harvest, hoping to pick fruit before the raccoon.  Before the tree succumbed to fire blight and marauding gophers, all that was visible of the wire was an inch scar ringing the trunk.  I couldn’t push the wire in or pull it out; the tree simply had learned to live with it  

              Last year, I planted a dwarf orange tree in its place.  Hacking away the dead limbs and stump, I realized that I am growing around and over life’s “if onlys” just the way this apple tree did.  Somehow, one season at a time, I grew above the hampering wire of betrayal, and loss.  But to live with my scar, I’ve had to accept it as one of life’s contrasts.  Etched in my mind are not only painful situations but God’s presence in  them and His comfort through them.  I am the apple of His eye—uniquely created and Divinely gifted for His purpose.  Just as a tree’s worth isn’t measured by the number of pies, my worth isn’t tied to a perfect set of circumstances.  No matter what happens along the way, God continues to call me to the rest of my life.