Lesson 4 - No pain, no grain

MAY 2023

Thrown around in the most challenging storm our family has ever known, an olive-wood cross I often hold in early-morning prayers has provided surprising comfort.

Though we have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death, with rare and aggressive cancer trying to destroy the woman I love so deeply, Jesus is with us. I’ve wept and wondered, cried out and sat silently, and held this cross. And there’s a lesson here for us all.

It’s in the grain.

Unlike an MDF shape formed in a factory, this real wood cross has grain. Dark lines formed over years and seasons. It’s what brings wood it’s beauty.

Tree scientists tell us that the variation of growth in Spring and Summer and the slowing down through Autumn to the  harshness of Winter shows in the grain. It brings character: Progress and pain, expansion and stagnation, joy and tears, sun and storm. These help the tree grow year after year.

So too with us… 

I recall standing on the Mount of Olives surrounded by trees nearly old enough to have been seen by Jesus himself, overlooking Jerusalem and wondering about the agony and pain Jesus felt as he prepared to walk through the ultimate valley to the ultimate death. 

Pain and grain, and then fruit and beauty.

The leaders I respect the most have character that shines through; I don’t mean personality. Or stage presence. Or the ability to wow a crowd or a social media following. I mean they have grain. They’ve done some time and trauma and there is God’s beauty in who they’re becoming.

It’s when we let the God who made us keep forming and shaping us. Hebrews puts it like this:

 “…our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness.” (Hebrews 12:10 NLT)

The lesson? Maturity typically comes to leaders through either time or trauma. One of those two. Both produce character and our loving Father knows what we need and our life’s seasons are in His hands. 

The prayer? Father, thank you for Jesus and the beauty of His life, His trusting example, and His willingness to walk to the cross. Help us to pick up our crosses daily, however painful and uncertain we may feel. Form us, shape us, in Your love and for Your glory. Amen.