We moved into our new home in February 1990, one of the first five houses in our subdivision. Like pioneers of old, we claimed our ground and began planting and beautifying.

On Memorial Day, we went to K-Mart, and purchased a live oak tree, barely more than a branch with a few twigs, and our whole family participated in planting it in a strategic place to shade our bedrooms during blistering summer days.

For some reason still mysterious to me, I later took it upon myself to plant a chinaberry tree next to the driveway, a choice that would prove to be one of the worst I ever made…landscaping or otherwise.  

True—the tree had beautiful foliage. The spring blooms were delicate and fragrant. Birds loved the berries. The trunk of the tree served for years as a background for family photos.

“Stand by the tree,” we would say, arranging ourselves, and capturing our memories.

As the tree grew over thirty-five years, problems ensued.

The berries and blossoms cascaded onto the driveway, requiring constant clean-up, The limbs growing over the house needed regular pruning.  

The other problem proved to be the roots, which eventually grew to enormous proportions, not only appearing, raised and gnarled, in the yard, but also pushing up and cracking the driveway and sidewalk.

I nurtured a love/hate relationship with that tree for years. When the limbs grew over the roof, I hired a tree man to remove them. As for the roots, I had already tripped on one of those in the past, thankfully falling onto the soft grass and rising, embarrassed, but uninjured.

Only last year, after enormous limbs fell onto the driveway during Hurricanes Helene and Milton, I determined to have the tree cut down.

I also had both the stump and the exposed roots “ground”—an extra safety measure so there would be no tripping over any remnants of roots. The tree man had to come back twice to make sure all roots were satisfactorily removed.

So—there was a large, clear, level patch of dirt in my front yard where the tree had once been. I was proud of myself for my responsible action and planned to have sod laid on the bare patch.

My roof was safe. My yard was safe.  

The uneven sidewalk, however, remained; the cracks and crevices waited…for me.

January 2025 had no sooner dawned than I came down with the flu…a bad case that laid me flat for more than a week. I wouldn’t let anyone in, and I didn’t go out. At last, I got better and began to survey…and lament… my surroundings.

The winter had been harsh. Much of my greenery had died. I cannot bear brown, dead, wilted leaves, and limbs, especially on the hibiscus right by my screened back porch.

I thought I had shaken off enough of the flu that I could go out and do one simple yard chore…trim the dead hibiscus branches and bag them up. Out I went with my loppers.

That chore went well. Then I made the mistake of performing one more task to validate my wellness.

Earlier, I had repotted a plant and left the old potting soil in a red bucket in my garage.

This was a task I could easily dispatch—dump the dirt…where? Why… in the large patch of dirt where the chinaberry tree had been removed.

I picked up the bucket of dirt. It was only half full. It was not heavy. I was not hurrying. I was simply walking.

That’s when the toe of my sensible shoe caught the one-half inch of concrete protruding from the sidewalk, which had been pushed up by the tree I had spent thousands of dollars cutting down, so my home and my person would be protected from sidewalk irregularities and exposed roots.

Down I went… my left hip crashing onto the sidewalk.  

Here is the providence of God.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon, not mid-morning or midday, when neighbors are at work and the neighborhood is all but abandoned.

My next door neighbor, a constant source of help and friendship through the years, had just come home from work. His adult son was with him. They were still outside.

When I tried to roll over and stand, and couldn’t, and was in ten kinds of pain, and started yelling for help, he and his son were kneeling by my side within ninety seconds.

He called 9-1-1. They called my son (a district chief with the fire department). They stayed by my side. Another friend joined them. My son and a rescue unit arrived in minutes.

By the time I was lifted onto a scoop stretcher and was loaded into the rescue unit, my daughter had arrived.

I was never alone.  

The ride to the hospital was excruciating—every bounce and jolt aggravating my injury.

Again: the providence of God. At that time of day, traffic on I-10 and the bridge is ordinarily backed up, causing delays and even standstills. That day, we drove straight to the ER.

Nothing about the accident made sense.

I wasn’t acting foolish—taking chances that might have easily resulted in an injury. I had gone to extreme and expensive measures to ensure my safety —having the tree cut down, and the ground levelled.

I had done nothing wrong. I had done everything “right.”

“…yet trouble came.” Job 3:26

If, thirty-five years ago, when I planted that tiny chinaberry tree, I could have looked ahead to my fall, would I have planted the tree there?

No.  

Should I blame myself, call myself into account for being so stupid?

“No,” you say. “Of course not. You couldn’t have known.”   

Yet…how often, when we are faced with a problem, a difficulty we “didn’t see coming,” do we trace our steps backward and immediately take the blame ourselves, faulting ourselves for failing to act on knowledge and foresight we did not and could not have possessed.

Sometimes we waylay our own lives, forever fixed on that one act, that one failure, that one lapse in judgment.

When we do, we delay our own healing and do disservice to the love and providence of God.

“A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. ” Proverbs 16:9