It’s the challenging times of growth in the leaner months that create a tree’s fingerprint, making it possible to find out the name of a shipwreck, reveal the identity, or uncover the truth of a trees history.
Tree rings hide amazing stories.
A single ring represents one year of the tree’s life. Each round marks one birthday.
The patterns of these rings reveal the age, origin, species, and condition of the tree.
Trees are always recording history, and how they are growing within it.
Tree rings show us when growing is easy, and when growing is hard; it’s these years of difficult growth that the strongest wood is produced.
If a tree didn’t have times of difficulty, there would be no distinctions in the rings; it’s the days of lean growth that offer definition in the rings of a tree.
Like trees, humans face easy and hard seasons of growth.
Likewise, it’s in those hard seasons that may strengthen us the most
As the apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans:
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us – (Romans 5: 3-5)
There’s nothing in our lives that God can’t craft into something beautiful, like a tree.
Check out these helpful links from the show:
- NPR has this amazing story on the life of the trees that Stradivari used to make his incredible instruments
- Here’s the story of how tree rings helped identify a shipwreck, lost to the seas of time
- Finally, here’s a detailed breakdown of how scientists can use tree rings to identify shipwrecks
Accept Dr. Laurel Moffatt’s invitation to join her on an exploration of the unnoticed and the seemingly unimportant.
Each episode of Small Wonders offers a brief but piercing look into a topic. The clarity the desert brings. Hurricanes and hard relationships. Finding reason in the middle of a ruin.
These quiet but profound observations about life uncovers lessons learned. Lessons from broken and beautiful things that are polished to perfection and set in rich audio landscapes for your consideration.
