A few years ago I was going through not only spiritual battles but also marital problems. We had Chinook winds, the worst we had ever had. They uprooted trees and broke many trees. One tree hung over the top of our apple tree. Let me tell you about that poor little apple tree. My daughter had gotten it as a tiny grafted tree. It had rabbits try to eat it, neighbor kids broke it twice, and moose damaged it many times. It had been over 20 years and to date all it had gotten was a few flowers. The other 2 grafted trees lost their grafted part and were just crab apple trees that didn’t get fruit either.
Anyway back to the Chinooks. The 130 mph winds broke a 70 foot tree and it was breaking right over the top of the little tree that had survived so much in the past. I begged my husband to cut the tree before it crushed the apple tree. He kept putting it off, and day by day I saw the apple tree being closer to being crushed. Finally I prayed with the most sincere prayer I think I have ever prayed.
I spoke to God about all the times the tree had survived, and if he wanted me to stay with my husband, please don’t let the tree get smashed, and if he could let it have apples (as we didn’t know if the graft even took). My husband finally went out to cut the tree that was hanging over it. I didn’t watch. He came in the house, and proclaimed, “I cut that tree down, and it cleared the apple tree. But the weirdest thing happened. I was trying to fall it one way and it totally fell a different direction, but cleared the apple tree”! I knew it was God who fell the tree with him! Then after over 20 years we got apples. Nice apples, called Breaky apples. We had 4 people living with us, and we got 4 apples. The next year we got 40 apples! I knew it was only because of God, and he wanted me to stay with my husband.
Praise God, we are still together. Every year after we have gotten apples, though this year the moose damaged the tree to get almost all the apples down, and broke a bunch of branches. Guess what though? My husband went out and helped me zip tie the branches back together. We did it together…as a married couple.
—Peggy