The Weeping Willow

I was walking alone a lonely road and came upon a weeping willow tree. I noticed that the ground all around the tree was soaking wet. Now weeping willows can absorb a lot of water, so there must have been a great down pour to create such a condition. As I stood there and gazed upon the tree, I noticed that there was a steady stream of water coming from the leaves, yet the sky was as blue as could be and not a dark cloud to be found.

There was a sadness coming from the tree. It had spent a number of years weeping on the ground and then tried to use its own tears to nourish itself. Its roots had become rooted due to all the tears and its leaves were always hanging limp and lifeless. No matter how much the sun shined, it could never overcome all the water that the tree was releasing.

As sadness overcame me, I closed my eyes. All of a sudden there was a great wind. The wind was so powerful that it started to dry up the wet, soggy ground. The tree was still weeping, but the wind overcame the tears before they hit the ground and got into the root system. Although I only had closed my eyes for a moment, it seemed like the vision lasted for days. As the ground dried out, I noticed that there was less and less water dripping from the tree. Finally, the leaves started to look alive again. The ground was dry and I even noticed some new branches being formed. Then I opened my eyes, only to see that nothing had changed.

The vision I saw was the hope for the weeping willow. At the moment a great sadness came over me. You see I was standing on the road and it was dry. I couldn’t help but think, “What can I do”? Should I try to try and convince the tree to stop weeping. It had been told since it was born that it is a weeping willow. Should I try and dry the ground where it is planted, I have nothing that will do that. I closed my eyes again asked God to send His mighty Wind and dry the ground.

As I stood there praying with my eyes closed, I saw His mighty Wind catch the tears that were falling from the weeping willow and take them upward. He was taking all the sadness from that tree upon Himself. The ground started to dry out and after it had dried, the roots got stronger and the weeping willow stopped weeping.

I asked God why he had let the tree live in such a terrible condition for all those years and He replied, “The weeping willow never asked for my help”. He said that He was just waiting for someone to come by and have enough compassion to ask for the weeping willow. God told me that I didn’t have to know how to fix the problem; I just needed to have compassion and ask the One who could fix the problem.

I opened my eyes, saw a restored tree, and continued down the road.

This inspirational story was submitted by Bill Webster.