After Hurricane Ike roared trough Houston, we lost many huge oak trees, some of them four or five feet around. Those trees, which looked as sturdy as can be, were no match for the 100-mile-an-hour winds. Joel Osteen: It's Your Time book red online.
There was just one type of tree that seemed to fare better than most others in this powerful storm-the skinny, flimsy palm tree. Do you know why palms held up so well?
God put bounce-back in the palm tree. It may get bent over by the forces of the nature, but it is only a matter of time before the palm stands tall once again. Palm trees don't sweat storms. They weather them. During Hurricane Ike, our plam trees were not worried. They weren't depressed or thinking, Oh, no. Another hurricane. This will be the one. I'm sure this will tear me up by the roots.
I learned something even more amazing about palms. Biologists say that during a hurricane when a plam tree is being bent and pushed over, its root system is actually strengthened by the stress, which gives it new opportunities to growth.
When the storm is over, the palm tree smiles and says, "I knew this would be a bad one. I knew i would be battered. But what do you know? I came back up stronger than I was before. Now, if you will excuse me, I think I'll grow a little taller."
Bend with hard times and then grow.
That's what God says will happen to each of us, if we just stay in faith. Psalm 92:12 says: "The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree."
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