Apple Trees

This is another from the archives, from my Christmas letter this past year. And if it looks like they’re picking apples from a rain gutter, you’re right. The orchard’s crop was very bad last year, but they still wanted the kids to experience getting apples from trees. Pretty creative!

A day after our field trip to the apple orchard in September, I was cutting up some apples in my Kindergarten classroom for apple art (stamping half an apple into paint then onto paper to see the print of the seeds) and noticed that one of the apples had seeds that were beginning to sprout. I showed them to the four or five students who were working at the table with me, and I asked them if they thought we should plant them.
They (of course) said yes.

I filled an empty yogurt container with some dirt and pushed the little sprouts into the soil. As we patted down the soil and poured some water on it, they asked me how long it would be until we would have apples. I told them, “It will be a very long time. First the trees have to grow to be taller than you and then when they are big enough, they will start to grow apples…so, you might be in high school before these trees are producing apples.”

They thought about that, and then one asked, “But how will we get the apples if we are in high school?” I said that I’d plant the trees at my house and they could walk over after school and pick apples. But then, not wanting them to be too disappointed if nothing happened, I told them that I have tried planting apple seeds many times without success. “So these seeds MAY not ever grow apples,” I said, “But if they do, I’ll share them with you.” They absorbed that information in the way Kindergartners do, and continued working on their art project.

A few minutes later, one boy paused in his painting, looked at the little cup of dirt and then at me with a big smile on his face. “Miss McMillan, aren’t you so excited we have apple trees?!”

Where the rest of the world might have seen a yogurt cup full of dirt, his 5 year-old expectancy saw fully grown apple trees filled with apples.

And in that moment, once again a little child was teaching me something about God. So often we see things with our human eyes – that situation that seems impossible, that person who seems like such a failure, that hopeless crisis…or the apple seeds which aren’t likely to grow…but God sees not just what is, but what will be. He calls us “saints” when we barely know enough to turn to Him for salvation. He calls us “beloved” when we are utterly unlovable to the people around us. He calls us “beautiful” even as we are bound in the ugliness of our sin.
He calls us “sons and daughters” though we are in all-out rebellion against Him.

And many years ago, he became a helpless infant who was called “Savior” and “King” even as he cried out with a tiny voice for his most basic human needs. He took on feeble human characteristics and grew up to be our perfect sacrifice in order to make a way for us to take on his perfection and sinlessness.

You know very well how YOU see you, and maybe even how OTHERS see you. But for a moment stop and ask God to show you how HE sees you. He sees beyond what you are or what you were; he delights in who you will be and he calls you by that name now. Even more breathtaking is the fact that He has the power to make his declaration true in your life. Trust Him. Lean heavily into His heart and believe the truth he tells you about yourself.
Make this New Year one of walking in the identity Christ has given you.

…and stop by my house in a few years. I’ll share the apples with you, too.