My dad decorated our den with a stump. I was just a kid at the time, eleven years old, maybe twelve. The perfect age to be fascinated with the idea of a tree stump sitting next to the fireplace.
Over the fireplace, a clock.
Next to the fireplace, fireplace tools.
Next to the tools, a stump.
Awesome.
He came home from work with it one day. It took up the better portion of the bed of his pickup. That’s where it lay when I first saw it. Dad pulled it out of his truck and let it fall onto the concrete driveway.
“What is it, Dad?”
“It’s a tree stump,” he answered with no small amount of pride.
Dad worked in the oil fields of West Texas. It was his job to make sure the pump machinery functioned smoothly. Apparently this tree trunk was interfering with his work. Quite honestly I don’t remember why it troubled him. Perhaps it blocked his access to an engine. Maybe it leaned too far across a dirt path. Whatever the reason, it kept him from doing his work in the way he wanted to do it. So he yanked it out of the ground. He wrapped one end of a chain around the trunk and the other end around his trailer hitch. The contest was over before it began.
But dislodging the tree wasn’t enough for him; he wanted to display it. Some men hang antlers on their walls. Others fill a room with deer heads or a taxidermied bass. My dad opted to decorate our den with a tree trunk.
Mom was less than enthused. As they stood on the driveway and exchanged animated opinions, I examined the bagged quarry. The trunk was as wide as my size twenty-nine waist. The bark had long since dried and was easy to peel away. Thumb-thick roots hung limp from the base. I’ve never considered myself to be a connoisseur of dead trees, but this much I knew: this trunk was a real beauty.
Over the years I’ve often reflected on my dad’s decision to turn a trunk into decor, especially because I consider myself to be a tree trunk of my own making. When God found me, I was a fruitless stump with deep roots. I offered no beauty to the landscape of the world. No one found shade under my limbs. I even interfered with the work of the Father. Even so, he found a place for me. It required a good yank and no small amount of cleaning up, but he took me from badlands to his home and displayed me as a work of his own.
Such is the work of the Holy Spirit.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:18 ESV)
The Spirit of God will transform you into a handiwork of heaven and display you in full view. Expect to be scrubbed, sanded, and varnished a time or two or ten. But in the end the result will be worth the discomfort.
You’ll be grateful.
In the end so was my mom. Remember the heated discussion my parents had about the stump? Dad won. He placed the stump in our den—but only after he cleaned it up, varnished it, and carved on it “Jack and Thelma” in big letters and the names of their four kids beneath. I can’t speak for my siblings, but I was always proud to see my name on the family tree of a stump puller.