…and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
(Revelation 22:2)
What a father did once when an apple looked sweet sent tremors shaking through the earth, breaking roots, severing limbs, sickening soil and bruising leaves, life uprooted from its Tree and grafted into death. What a brother did when he walked through a field and Hell crouched at his flapping tent made the earth cry out for blood, while knotted roots, turned inside out, craved curse like twisted blessing which seven times avenged. What Son once climbed a skull-bound tree outside garden or city walls took the deadened soil and sprinkled cursed roots with the flow of blood, injected life in deadened leaves and grafted family in. What life, what family, grown in Him now where death should hold the sway of wind and trunk, and roots declared too dead to be of any good – now spreads, now heals, now spreading heals. What life has won the day.
The Consolations of Writing 
Beautiful!
I wasn’t planning to stop by today. But when I saw which Bible verse you had referenced, curiosity got the better of me. Your verse is from a short passage I read several times a week, and meditate upon often.
May God bless you.
Thanks! It’s a beautiful passage, isn’t it? I’ve often been drawn to it myself. Really glad you appreciated the poem. God bless.
I like this very much, Matthew 🙂
Speaking of family trees, isn’t it strange that all Christians have two relatives most people would rather deny… a lying farmer and a drunken sailor.
That’s true, it’s not a very glorious lineage! But God makes everything glorious.