The Joy of Wooden Salad Bowls and Oak Trees

Joyful Dolphins off the Coast of Jekyll Island, GA

Psalms 28:7 NIV

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song."


Kindnesses stick in my memory. After twenty years, I still remember Bert’s oak tree.

As a single parent, I rented the only place I could afford 
located across from my school: an uninsulated home desperately in need of repairs. It had one heat source, a wood stove.  Since I was too poor to buy firewood, I would pick up live oak and pine branches to burn as I walked around town.

One weekend, however, I developed bronchitis. I couldn’t get out to hunt wood.  The house temperature plummeted, and I didn't know how to keep Russell and me warm. I surveyed my belongings.

Among my possessions were wooden salad bowls, wooden spoons, and a wooden cutting board. I placed them in the stove and lit them. Boy-oh-boy did they burn!  We had heat for two hours until the fire died down.

I needed more wood. I spied Russell's rocking chair, a gift from his grandfather.  I wasn't actually going to burn it, but it was tempting.

Russell, who had seen my kitchen utensils burn, followed my gaze. He pleaded, "Mommy, I really like that chair."  

Twenty years later, he still has it.

I burned all my wooden possessions that weekend, a fierce wind storm rose up Sunday night, and my bronchitis got worse.

Monday, I called in sick to the school secretary, Bert Bluestein. I explained my situation.

She told me the old oak tree next to the school blew over in the wind storm. She asked the vocational teachers to chop it into firewood for me. By the end of the day, I had a fire in the stove and enough stacked to last for weeks.

Russell and I laugh about those days now, but at the time, they seemed so hard.
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Dear Lord, thank you for the ability to discover joy in difficult times.