The first home that my wife and I bought in Berwyn, Pa., was a fixer upper and was slightly run down and had large dieing tree that overhung the west side of the kitchen.
I knew that the tree had to come down or else I would be removing a large branch out of an upstairs bath room during a wind storm or in the bitter cold of the winter. It was one of those “pay me now or pay me later” situations, so I decided to take on the project by myself and cut it down in the summer while weather permitted and to get rid of the potential problem.
The tree had a large trunk that split off into three good size branches that spread out in separate directions to which I decided to climb up in the tree and tie off one of the branches to one of the others with some rope so it would not hit the house when it was cut loose. All seemed to go well as I was sitting in the crotch of the three branches sawing to my hearts content until the branch I was cutting was severed and broke loose.
As the tree branch let loose the ropes went into action and held on to the limb as I anticipated, and with out warning the limb swung with force all the way around to the back side of the tree and promptly smashed into my leg at the side of my knee cap.
Then just as fast, the momentum driven branch swung back around and hit me in the same spot, bounced off again and continued to swing in the opposite direction once more only to hit me the third and final time. This time I tried to be careful not to get in its way, but unfortunately my efforts failed.
The limb finally came to rest as it just hung there and wobbled aimlessly. The pain from my leg was agonizing and unbelievable as I did everything I could to avoid loosing my composure.
As I finally made my way down out of the tree I hobbled to the back screen door and told Gale to take me to the hospital. By the time I got there my leg had swollen tight with fluid and my leg had gone numb. The doctor repeatedly stuck several large “Horse needles” in my leg and drew out blood and clear fluid until the swelling wasn’t as tight which gave me some relief and to this day, the numbness has never completely gone away on that side of my leg.
When I returned home I continued with the project over a course of a month or so and finally got the tree down, and I had a back hoe operator dig up the stump and root structure and placed it at the end of our gravel drive way.
The backhoe operator said he’d return to pick it up but he never did show up to complete the task.
That summer with my shovel and pick axe I dug a deep hole, which was so deep that I could stand it and not see out of the top of it, and eventually I had to get a ladder to climb out. During the course of the week we even had a neighbor or two that would come over to cheer me on and check on what “Mark was up to”, I was a source of their entertainment.
Then I took our truck and pushed the stump in with a definite thud and I promptly reburied it. To this day I presume it’s still down there and it has probably baffled the future home owners as to why the driveway continued to sink in that area as the tree continues to disintegrate.
In the scripture (Ecclesiastes 11:3 ) there is a verse that says, “If the clouds are full, they pour out rain upon the earth; and whether a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies”.
It never ceases to amaze me how God can say so much without using a lot of words.
In this incident when the tree limb fell, it did not ask me if I was ready. I obviously did not take the necessary precautions to prevent myself from getting hurt.
I’m convinced that there may have been a few better options that I didn’t explore or know about, but ignorance was not a factor that I could have relied on to rescued me from this accident.
As time has marched on I learned that the laws of nature do not take our foolishness into consideration. A simple test of this is to lick your finger and stick it in a lamp socket only to experience the sock of your life every time you try it.
The laws of nature are set by God and they are true no matter what we think. Another one of Gods laws is, “Unless a man is born again he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven”. You just won’t get in no matter what your ideas or efforts are on how to enter the Kingdom of heaven, and you will find that Ignorance is no excuse of this law.
There is only one way, and that is through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, not through your good intentions or good works or any other effort that you may think will suffice.
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