I sat with my mom on her back porch. A breeze drifted through the screens.
“It’s been good to have you home for a few days,” my mom said.
Being at my parents’ house was relaxing. It was a break from the day-to-day obligations of life and lawyering. For months, I had felt caught in a constant cycle of drafting briefs, teaching Bible study, and working out at the gym.
“Look at the willow tree,” my mom said, motioning toward the yard. The willow’s thin leaves fluttered in the wind. Its enormous boughs swayed.
“How old is that tree now?” I asked.
“Three years,” she said.
I was fresh out of law school when we selected the willow at the nursery. We had combed through rows of trees until we found the perfect one.
I wished I could slip back to that day, when obligations of school were behind me and the stress of post-grad life was still ahead.
“Can you believe that tree once fit in our van?” my mom asked.
I looked at the willow, nearly a story tall. It hardly seemed the same spindly tree that had lain between the seats of the minivan.
“It has really grown,” I said.
So had I. In the last three years, I had become a better leader and a better writer. I was stronger and more confident.
As nice as it would be to return to the past, that was a place where I no longer fitI watched the sprawling willow continue to move with the wind. And I thanked God for the opportunity to continue to grow and change.
Father, thank You for continually growing and changing me.
—Logan Eliasen
