Originally published February 2016.

Today, as I sat inside my favorite coffee shop, seeking warm refuge from the bitter bite of winter from which I cannot seem to get away, I found myself looking out the window at the snow falling down and wishing that the warmth of the summer sun would emerge from its slumber early and carry me back into its bliss of tank tops and bare feet and sweaty hikes and refreshing river swims. I took a break from writing to daydream as I thought back through the adventures I experienced this past summer, as I was taken on the rollercoaster of its mountaintops and valleys all over again as I watched the movie play in my head.

My thoughts found rest in a memory of one of the mountaintops that I had not thought about in a while from a weekend spent backpacking in the Linville Gorge Wilderness. I was reminded of an unexpected nugget of knowledge I gained when I happened to hear something a trail guide said as he passed by the rock I had claimed as my reading spot for the afternoon. I remembered that I had jotted a few things down about what he said in my journal so that I could write more about it later, but I never finished writing about it until today. So I thought, why not share it since it’s fresh on my mind.  As I was reading in the sun, a trail guide came by with his small group and stopped on a rock near mine.

After listening for a minute or two, I gathered that the trail tour was one focused on botany, and being the tree-lover that I am, of course I had to subtly re-orient my reading position so that I could hear more of what he was telling his group. His topic of discussion was not one I was expecting, as the first thing I heard him explain was why wildfires are imperative for a certain species of tree to be able to survive, thrive, and reproduce.

Without going into the depth of microbiology that he dove into, his general explanation was that the outer coverings of the trees’ seeds are so thick and tough that it takes the intense heat of a raging wildfire to be able to penetrate the covering and break down their enzymes enough in order to crack the shell open. This is the only way that the heart of the seed can be exposed so that it can be germinated and fertilized to grow into the new tree it was made to be. So essentially, wildfires are imperative to further the population of this certain tree species, and that fascinated me.

As I heard him explain this, I not only heard his voice explaining the fire’s meaning in the physical. His voice was paralleled by the Lord’s voice speaking of how the fire’s physical significance only tells more of the fire’s spiritual significance in our hearts…

Sometimes, even in the highest places that we are brought to, the tree that is currently growing on what seems to be the tallest and most beautiful mountain ridge in our lives must be completely demolished by the flame of a wildfire, a wildfire with heat so suffocating that we wish for it to put us out of our misery and just kill us. A wildfire that, to us, seems to wreck any hope we have left in the world, one that seems to destroy any future hope of what we see our mountain ridge becoming. One that makes God seem like He doesn’t exist, or if He does, that He doesn’t matter. One that makes us question everything to the point where we see no stronghold in which to put our faith and trust and hope.

We are overcome with rage and hatred of the wildfire as we slam our fist into the charred ashes of what remains of our beautiful mountaintop, and we then curse God because he destroyed our precious tree that we had been so cautiously taking care of, that we had been killing ourselves for in order to just keep it alive. We shake our fist in ire because we knew what we were doing and did not need God to intervene. We could have fixed it, or we just needed a little more time for the tree to grow a little taller to make our mountaintop complete, but God took that control from us, and for that our hearts are left filled with resentment.

But what our unfortunate, mortal perspective prevents us from seeing is what that wildfire does under the surface, in the dark soil of our soul that has been left poisoned and toxic, having been taken over by the roots of the tree of which we thought our life’s purpose was to keep alive, the roots that we fully believed were our support system that kept our hearts beating. However, in reality those roots were actually strangling us and squeezing out what little life, joy, and happiness we had left, leaving us empty, lonely, broken, numb, emotionally and spiritually dead.

What we are unable to see is that the heat of the wildfire is the only force that has the capability of penetrating the hard coverings of the seeds of potential new trees that have already been planted under the surface, the new dreams and visions and goals that are just waiting to be cracked open and germinated so that they can repopulate our mountaintop with a new forest. We are so distracted by the loss of what has been burned down that we cannot see the fertilization and new life that begins each time a wildfire comes along and wrecks our mountaintops.

We forget that a fire, though it destroys, also creates potential for newness as it transfers chemical energy to heat energy.

We forget that sometimes, a wildfire is necessary to repopulate our lives with new fruit.

We forget that sometimes new growth is only possible through intense heat and pressure.

We forget that sometimes new vision is only given through destruction.

We forget that sometimes new meaning is only found through suffering.

I am always seeking new ways that the micro speaks of the macro, and this is only one of the many that I have found.

It blows my mind how the physical details of creation can tell us of our own souls. 

Keep your eyes and ears open always, for enlightenment and wisdom is normally only a couple feet away. It just takes reorienting ourselves sometimes, whether it be moving a little closer, a little higher, a little deeper, so that we will be in a position to receive it. 

Cheers to the journey, and may your Spirit always reside in a state of wonder.