HEART THOUGHTS from Helen

“You are a hiding place for me; You, Lord, preserve me from trouble…” (Psalm 32:7)

All of my four grandsons like tree houses or hideouts, as did their dads. When I hear them talk about them, I smile. While in the eighth grade my family built a home on my paternal granddaddy’s farm. One of the pecan trees that lined the lane to the barns served as my girlhood hiding place. Even though I liked the nuts, my interest in fallen pecans elevated to the sturdy limbs of the tree itself.

Everyone needs a secret, special place to call their own. Many times during my turbulent teens I sought refuge in the branches of the pecan trees. It was not an uncommon sight to see me and Princess, my collie dog, headed for that hide-away. It didn’t take long for this tomboy to shinny up that friendly bark into a secret place while my faithful Princess laid waiting at the trunk of the tree.

My special tree grew far enough from the road so that I could see everything that passed, but nestled in the crook of those branches, no one could see me.

If those leaved branches had been tongues they could have tattled all about a tow-headed teenager’s hopes, heartaches and hangnails.

In times of need, now, a special rocking chair holds me and my hopes and heartaches. I call it my prayer closet. This place beckons me as strongly as did my hiding place of long ago. Perhaps those branches bore the fruit of prevailing prayer. I doubt if I called it that then, but I sure do stand on the promises of it now.

You, O Lord, are my hiding place.