Fire, Forgiveness, and the California Redwood

The mighty Sequoia, also known around here as the California Redwood, is a plant that can endure anything. Nobody knows how long they can live or how tall they can grow because they keep growing until tragedy strikes and they are cut or knocked down. These trees grow around, through, and because of the trials they face. Most impressively, the redwoods survive - and even thrive on - fire.

Fire is a devastating force to a normal forest. But to a Redwood, fire is just an opportunity. The first branches of the redwood tree grow high above the highest flames of a forest fire. The tree's thick, sappy bark is fire resistant. When fire does damage the trunk of one of these magnificent giants, the tree immediately sets to work growing a slab of wood even thicker than the rest of its protective bark. Each time a sequoia survives a fire it becomes even stronger than before.

What can we learn from this?

Have you ever been through fire in your life? Maybe you were burned by job loss, or maybe someone you really trusted turned out to be untrustworthy. There are a million ways that we humans go through the proverbial fire in life. Fire hurts. It creates large, open, blistered wounds. It makes us afraid of situations similar to the one that hurt us. Like the redwood we must learn to grow stronger and stand taller as a result of the fires in our lives, instead of allowing them to consume and devastate us.

How?

Right now I'm reading a book by Paul Tsika titled "Sequoia-Size Success." In it, Tsika explains several principles of success in life that we can see demonstrated in the gargantuan trees that have lived hundreds of years. One of these principles is that you must learn to heal deep wounds. I'd like to share an acrostic from Tsika's lesson today - with the explanations paraphrased.

If you react to the fires of life and the pain they cause in an unhealthy way, these "heart burns" lead to lifelong spiritual and emotional bondage. Using the acrostic "HURTS" we discover:


H - Horrible experiences combined with
U - Unbiblical perception creates a wrong pattern of thinking that is mired in self-centeredness and self-pity. This leads you to
R - Raise up a stronghold to shield yourself from further pain. You cut yourself off from everyone, insisting that no one can understand you because you are the exception, that no one should come near you because you are the exception, and that it's perfectly healthy for you to be living like this because you are the exception. As you perceive yourself as the one exception in the world, you also start judging people more harshly. This creates a situation where
T - Troubles are wrapped up in darkness where light and love cannot reach in to heal the hurts. Because of this, the pain only grows deeper. Heart burns become
S - Soul Burns that are then perpetuated through the generations as you pass on your bitterness toward a person or group by constantly rehashing the pain you experienced.

Mistreated or poorly dealt with "heart burns" affect all of your relationships.

With God, we become closed off and tormented, unwilling and unable to accept the love and grace he has to offer.

With ourselves, we become hateful and angry, creating self-sabotaging habits and self-depreciating thought patterns.

With others, we become locked in a state of emotional immaturity, making us needy, suspicious, and fearful.

The good news is that we, like the Redwood, can heal from these terrible wounds if we will only learn to forgive.