Day 64 - Blossoming

Between Easter and Pentecost, the Church lives in a season of waiting—multiple resurrection appearances followed by days of prayerful expectancy. It is a time suspended between what God has already done and what God is about to do. And perhaps that is why a single tree on the edge of local HS2 works has captured my imagination.

For years now, we’ve watched the landscape around us change. Fields once rich with crops, hedgerows alive with birdsong, and woodlands full of quiet beauty have been cleared to make way for the new rail line and temporary relief road. The scale of the work is astonishing — tunnels, bridges, machinery, and earth piled high. It is a landscape in upheaval, stripped back, unsettled.

And yet, in the midst of this disruption, stands one solitary tree. Somehow it survived the clearance. Its branches have blossomed — fragile, hopeful, defiantly beautiful. Every time I pass it, I feel as though it is preaching a sermon.

It reminds me of the promise God spoke through the prophet Isaiah:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19).

New things rarely emerge in tidy places. They come through disruption, through the clearing away of what was, through landscapes that feel stripped and uncertain. Resurrection itself burst forth from a tomb.

After Easter morning, the disciples lived in a world that had been shaken to its foundations. Jesus was alive, but everything familiar had been overturned. They were unsure, still afraid at times, still trying to understand what this new life meant. And into that unsettled landscape, Jesus kept appearing — speaking peace, breathing the Spirit, opening their eyes.

That tree feels like one of those appearances. A small, surprising sign of life in a place that looks like loss. A reminder that God’s creative power is not undone by human disruption. A witness that beauty can still take root in unlikely soil.

Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Not will be, but is. Even before everything looks restored. Even before the landscape is healed. Even before we understand what God is building. New creation begins quietly, like blossom on a solitary tree.

As we journey from Easter to Pentecost, perhaps this is our invitation:

• To notice the small signs of resurrection in the midst of upheaval.

• To trust that God is already at work, even when the ground feels torn up.

• To wait with expectancy for the Spirit who brings life where we least expect it.

And maybe, like that tree, we are called to stand where God has planted us — rooted, resilient, quietly blossoming — bearing witness to the Creator who makes all things new.

Prayer

Creator God, in the places of our lives that feel unsettled, help us to see the signs of Your new creation. Teach us to wait with hope, to trust Your renewing Spirit, and to blossom where You have placed us. Amen.

Debbie Wilson