Apple Tree

About a month ago now, as many of you are aware, I was unexpectedly flown back to the States due to the coronavirus. A couple days before our abrupt departure, my dad informed me that home was not the place I remembered it. I believed him but couldn’t fully wrap my mind around it. Simply put, my expectations for this trip were that I’d be on the field for eleven months and that when I returned, things would be somewhat normative. What I had foreseen for this year was far from what I am now experiencing. 

After a lengthy travel period, I arrived in the Washington D.C. airport alongside my squad. At that point, a lot of us said our goodbyes, departed and went our separate ways. I remember boarding a completely empty tram that would take me to the appropriate terminal for my connection to Denver. The experience was surreal, as if I were dreaming… Things were happening to me. Things that I couldn’t control.  Despite the numerous times I pinched myself, the strange dream continued into a fourteen day quarantine period in my parent’s basement. For all I knew, I could be a contaminated carrier, or worse yet, a victim of the lethal virus. I won’t lie. My first reaction to the pandemic aside from sorrow was panic. How could I get back to ‘controlling’ my life again? I wanted to get right back up on my cushioned, realistically very wobbly throne.

Before heading to Denver, my squad mentor, Amy, approached me with a note. It said, “A lot of trees will look appealing but only one of them is the tree of life. Choose it.” I thought the note was sweet but I didn’t see how it applied to my life. From my perspective, I didn’t have any trees. Those were long gone with the rest of what I had abandoned. The note was soon forgotten.

About a week later, I had a dream. I was walking down a dirt path. The path was surrounded by crab apple trees. At one point, I was hungry and decided to reach up and pick a crab apple from one of the dwindling trees. Just as I was about to, I saw a massive tree with overflowing fruit. It wasn’t easily accessible like the others. It was nothing like the others. It stood in a field, behind the crabapples, alone, with gigantic green apples, larger than life. I looked at it in awe because I had never seen anything like it before. Suddenly, I lost my appetite for the crabapple I was about to eat. I realized I wanted nothing to do with it. Immediately, after waking, I wanted to know what the dream meant. It’s very rare that I have dreams, much less dreams that I’m able to recall so vividly. I called a friend and started rambling about the dream. That’s when it dawned on me, “Oh yeah, the note I received at the airport…it talked about a lot of trees and one unique tree unlike the others, the tree of life.” It finally started clicking and I was like, “Okay God, I hear you…message received.” Apparently, God thought this message was so important that He gave it to me twice. 

I started thinking of all of the crabapples in my life. They have always been there, right next to my path screaming, “Eat me. I’m right here. I can make you feel better right now.” A lot of times I go for it and end up as empty as I started, within a short period of time. What do my crabapple trees look like? They look like anything that is not Jesus and anything that is not life. On the Race I had trees to choose from. Even during my fourteen day quarantine, I still had trees to choose from! Was I going to attempt to force my will or let His will be done? Was I going to stay in bed all day or was I going to get up and choose life? Some days I didn’t get out of bed and I still chose life, which simply meant, crying to Jesus and surrendering all of my weakness to Him. I’m learning that it is very okay to cry, to be broken, to be weak and to go to Jesus with it all. It’s okay to ask all of the questions. He welcomes them and wants to meet you in the hurting. Okay, wow, tangent…but someone needed to hear that. Whenever we choose Jesus, we have access to the amazing apple tree I saw in my dream. It’s fruitful, abundant, overflowing, expansive and beyond our wildest imagination. It doesn’t scream at you as you walk by. It might not be easy to access and maybe it’s a little hidden from view, but it is well worth it. It doesn’t leave you lacking.