God's awesome beauty and power!

We were greeted this morning with a text from our very gracious neighbor asking us to look out our back door.  A storm had come through over the weekend and some rather large braches of our once beautifil pear-shaped tree had fallen into our neighbor's fence and yard. You can see the big gap in the tree on the left side of it. 

Nice neighbor that he is, he helped us cut up all the big branches into the pile on the yard (thanks Fred & Barbara Findley ). 

Then we noticed the middle of the tree has cracked. Now we have to have our beautiful tree removed before it damages someone's fence,  or worse,  their house!  That would be a horrible thing! 

This tree blossomed early in the spring and was so beautiful with thousands of white blooms indicating the cold gray winter is over and the new life of spring is here! It was full and green and shady all summer. Fun to hide and play under.  Its leaves turned a bright and vibrant red in the fall. Just breathtakingly beautiful! My grandchildren would hang from its red-leaved branches and pick the red berries that grew on it. ..hoping to use them for Christmas decorations. It is a beautiful reminder of the wonder of nature that God has created. I will miss this beautiful tree and alk the memories I have from it, but it is a reminder that all nature reflects God's beauty and His awesome power (the storm that brought down 1/4 of it). 

This incident also reminds me that I am my brother's keeper.  I need to ensure that I, or my belongings, do them no harm...in fact I need to use my belongings to do good.  

On that note....my neighbors and I used this opportunity to set a date to grill out together next week!  We are all so busy,  that we rarely see each other! 

Was this God's way of saying "forget the trees,  remember your neighbors whom I love!" ?