A Boy Challenges God
It started like any other day
for Jay, an nine-year-old, but what
happened that afternoon would change his life forever.
Jay was growing up in a new
subdivision in Woodhaven Woods, Michigan where his dad was serving as a
minister.
The homes were new and had
flat back yards with no fences and all backed into a wood line fifty to seventy
yards deep. It was a great place for a youngster to grow up and play. Most of
the trees were hardwoods, like oak and maple, tall and straight. All except
one, says Jay. That tree was forked about four feet up. One fork was badly
decayed and hollow near its base, the other was solid and healthy.
Jay remembers the afternoon
was very windy, lots of threatening clouds but it wasn’t cold and it wasn’t
raining. He was standing in his yard when he challenged God. He doesn’t know
what prompted him. He just did. What goes through a boy's mind anyway? Jay
tells it this way.
I was several hundred yards
away I could see it was the forked tree that had fallen.
"Some parents gathered around the forked
tree and I went over to see. It was then I saw that the solid half of the
forked tree had cracked all the way to the ground and toppled. Surprisingly,
the decayed half was still standing. You could look right threw and see light
on the other side. I don’t know what was holding that tree up. It looked as if
it would fall over at any minute so the parents were keeping the children at a
safe distance.
"I thought about it
later. God knocked over the strong but held up the weak. You could read into
that. The weak half of that tree never did fall on its own. Some men cut it down
later to so it wouldn’t fall on anyone.
"I didn't tell a soul
what I had said for the longest time. I guess I thought this was between God
and me. Even now, decades later, I have only shared this experience with a few
others for fear of being seen as bragging or something worse.
"But there is no doubt
in my mind that God felled the strong half of that tree that day."
Woodhaven Woods, MI
