Major Disruptions in Life

 

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and mountains quake with their surging.”*

Early one winter morning, a loud rumbling drew Al and me to the living room window. The source of the rumbling was a large truck that had parked in front of our house. Four more trucks followed the first one, parking along the edge of the street. Unfortunately, they took up some of the right lane as well, slowing down the traffic going east and west.

The trucks were from a tree-trimming service. Three of them pulled trailers with lift buckets, and the other two had chippers attached. They meant to do business!

A local power company had hired the service to cut away branches from the large silver maples lining the street that were interfering with the power lines. It was important to free up the lines, especially in case of a severe storm that might cause a tree to fall, knocking out power to the entire neighborhood.

 As we watched from the window, a couple of men got out of the truck nearest our house and began to assess the situation. Looking up at the two trees on the easement in front of our property, they determined which branches were interfering with the power lines. Then one of the workers climbed into the bucket and maneuvered it out over the street so that he could reach the branches with a chainsaw.

            I watched all of this intently, mindful of the fact that there was a family of gray squirrels nesting in those trees. In fact, nearly every tree on the block had one or more nests high up in its branches.

 Instead of hibernating in holes in the ground during the winter, the squirrels in our area prefer making nests. Unfortunately, they are oblivious to the problem of the power lines, often using them as an easy way to get from one place to the other.  If they only knew, they could avoid those trees and choose safer places of habitation.

Last spring, tiny squirrels emerged from the nests along with the adults. All summer long and into the fall the resident squirrels scurried around the neighborhood, digging in people’s lawns, stealing tomatoes and other tasty things from gardens, collecting pine cones and chewing up grass, presumably used to make their nests more air tight.

They had disappeared when winter arrived, only emerging if the weather was decent enough for them to descend from their nests and forage for food.

 “Why did the tree trimmers have to come in the winter, when the squirrels are in their nests?” I asked Al, with the sinking feeling that it was not going to be a peaceful morning for them. Perhaps it was because all of the leaves had fallen, and it was easier to identify the branches that had to be cut. Less of a mess to clean up as well.

There were other things to do that morning; however, I stood rooted in front of the window watching anxiously as the bucket moved closer and closer to a large squirrel’s nest. At one point the workman hovered over the nest and cut all of the branches around it so that it was propped up between a couple of stubs.

“Please, leave the nests alone,” I silently begged. There wasn’t any way that the squirrels, who were afraid of humans—especially noisy humans—could have remained, although neither Al nor I saw any sign of them during the morning.

 Every silver maple on our side of the street, all of the way to the end of the block was trimmed that morning. When the job ended just before noon, the power lines were cleared.

The trees looked deformed, with stubs remaining in the place of many of the branches. They definitely were not pleasing to the eye as with a good pruning job!

And the squirrels? Only of few of their nests remained. Most of them must have scampered away to find temporary shelter until new nests could be built. Hopefully they will be able to survive the winter, even though they are nuisances sometimes!

When cataclysmic events happen, we can find refuge in God. There is no need to live in fear. He is our “ever-present” help in times of trouble.

* Psalm 46:1-3 NIV