Sitting out in the cool morning on my back porch, hot coffee, Bible and pen in hand.  I'm looking at this tree the neighbors want to cut down because it's an annoyance to them.  Apparently the leaves keep falling in their pool.  It's not in our yard, so it's not our concern.  But I still feel like it's part mine. I love a particular limb on that tree and I watch it change during the seasons.  It's brought me great joy over the years to see summer leaves thin and fall and then...surprise! This most graceful branch with a perfect curl on the end and twigs in just the right place.  It's even more beautiful when the cardinal (we affectionately call him "Little Red") rests there in a mid-winter snow.  So...my heart is sad.  Sad at the thought of someone cutting down that beauty.  I feel a fleeting shadow of what Mary or John might have felt as Jesus carried that cross.  Just a bystander, helpless, without a voice in the matter. Just watching as people who do not see the Beauty but simply find it annoyance, obstructing their Cause, do away with it.  The Tree has done nothing to deserve death.  It's simply grown and flourished and provided shade just as the Father intended.  It has worshiped.  And yet I hear..."Be still and know, Shawna."  Is He not sovereign over the death of this tree? Is He not at work? Does He not have more He wants to accomplish by the sacrifice of those limbs - perhaps the whole tree?  Will He not bring resurrection when we surrender to His sovereign plan?  The neighbors were matter-a-fact.  It will be done.  The tree will be cut off, or die.  I'll probably wince.  I might tear up when my favorite branch falls to the ground.  But I will wait on the Lord.  I will pray for both my neighbors (those who are cutting and those who own the tree) that the Gospel will shine through.  I will look for Beauty in the death.  And I will look for Beauty in all other things.  Perhaps this death will even bring a new perspective of Beauty hiding from me before.  This world disregards and extinguishes that which is Beautiful all the time.  It's my job as His glory-seeker to keep looking for it, keep allowing my life to be it.  He is the Beauty...and He makes all things beautiful in His time.  Ecc 3:11, Ps. 149:4, Is 52:7