Posted on by Lori Cartmell

They Walked Away Winners

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

What would cause you to walk away from your greatest success?

It would have to be something pretty compelling, wouldn’t it?

Because people don’t normally throw in the towel when they’ve just achieved something unimaginable, when their wildest dreams have just come true.

If your business has finally had a banner year, you’d want to build on that and grow the company even bigger, not turn your back on it.

If you’ve just won several awards for achievements in your field, that’s probably not the time you’d suddenly want to quit.

So why would someone abandon it all right after a sensational triumph?

If they’d discovered something infinitely more valuable and worthwhile.

That’s how it was for three fishermen named Peter, James, and John.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Beauty in Unexpected Places

Burl on Tree Trunk.
Image by Evelyn Simak, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA-2.0

Sometimes there can be magic hidden within the most unlikely of places.

Take tree burls, for instance (or burrs, to our British friends).

These rounded, knotty growths found on tree trunks can seem very ugly.

Burls form when the tree is under some kind of stress, causing bud growth cells to develop in an abnormal way. Such stressors might include bacteria, viruses, fungi, insect infestations, or wounds. A burl is visible evidence of how the tree is dealing with these attacks.

They look rather like tumours, and mar the otherwise regular pattern of the bark.

Surely there’s nothing good about burls?

But there is.

Their unsightly exterior hides magnificence.

Few people know that inside these contorted and gnarled outgrowths is concealed something wonderful. The wood that burls yield is unusual and highly figured, making it valued and sought after by woodworkers and artists.

This unique wood is prized for its beauty and rarity, and is often used for veneers or inlays in fine furniture, trim or panelling inside luxury cars, and for household objects like bowls or pens, which become works of art.

Do you have a few “burls” in your life? Some knotty problems that have grown into a tangled mess?

Wonder if God could ever bring something good out of them?

He can!

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