Glimpses of Utah: Desert Trees

"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water..." Psalm 1:3

Utah:

I stared out the car window. Cracked hills peered back, lazing in the 104 degree heat. Yellow and white rock slouch against a pale, cloudless blue sky. Each stone is marked in dark brown and grey lines, like tears. Long river marks carve deep into each formation.

Scrub litters the rock face. Grey-green leaves and tangled vine patterns are the vegetation of this sparse and empty area. A whisper of wind blows heat across the sky.

My sister calls out: "Mom! There's water in the road!"

A mirage. Illusions of water caused by the heat that shimmers along the blacktop.

Absolutely bare. Absolutely barren. Completely deserted. Nothingness. A wilderness.

I looked out the window again at the empty sand. By the side of the road, something startled me.

A steep slope formed the backdrop. Rocks of grey, yellow, brown and pink color lay across the slope, like a rock waterfall. Heat shimmers off of the stones and the small flecks reflect back at the sun. And, out of the nothing, a tree grows. The tree has deep green and blue-grey leaves, thick and shiny. They are pointed upward, in a circular pattern.

And then we passed by and it was gone.

That struck my fancy.

I have been in the desert before. I have been where there seems to be endless pain, rocky choices, strangling heat. But God blew me to that place, like the wind blows a seed. And I grew where planted. And even where there is no water, God gave me nourishment.

I want to be like a tree in the desert- refreshing among the thorns and sun. I want to point back to God. I want not only to grow where I was planted- but to BLOOM!

Those were my thoughts of Utah.

-Catey