Tied Up with Pantyhose

Tied up with Pantyhose

When the last storm passed through our area, it left behind it broken branches, leaves and nature’s debris all over our yard. It pulled some of our neighbor’s trees right out of the ground; roots and all! Three of our newly planted trees were leaning over precariously. Two of the stakes were broken and the third was pulled half way out of the ground. They were just young baby trees, and my “mother’s heart” knew I had to do something to save them or the next storm would surely do them in.

Apparently the skinny stakes the trees had been planted with weren’t adequate to hold them in the kind of storms that hit our little hillside. So I looked around the property for better stakes. All I could find in our pile of odds and ends at the barn, were T-stakes, so I picked out three and headed for the trees.

I don’t know if you have ever had the privilege of pounding in a T-stake, but if you haven’t, don’t feel bad. The Thing-a-ma-jigger (not sure that’s the right name) used to pound the stakes in is quite heavy. The T-stakes are 7 or 8 feet tall (or looked like it from where I stood) and I am 5’4”. My husband would call this, “An accident waiting to happen.” But I didn’t tell him, so he didn’t say it. I didn’t think about that. A “Mother’s heart” acts before it thinks.

So I got a ladder, which made me much taller, and managed to pound all three stakes into the ground – they didn’t look too bad. I can hardly lift my arms now, but I did it! All I needed now was something to tie the trees to the stakes. What could I use? I searched through the garage, didn’t find a thing. I needed something sturdy yet flexible so the trees could sway a little in the wind but not too much. Then I realized I had just the thing in the house– pantyhose!

After some digging, I pulled the pantyhose out of my top dresser drawer and used them to tie up the trees. It worked perfectly. I’m thinking my husband might question my methods, but hey – it worked! Knowing that there had to be a lesson in all of this that God wanted to teach me (He’s good like that), I asked Him what it was. For a second, I thought I heard Him laugh, but it must have been the wind blowing by.

What do young trees, a mother’s heart, a stake, and pantyhose all have to do with each other?

Hmm. As a mom I can see this could mean that God is that sturdy stake in our children’s lives (the baby trees) and for a time He allows us moms (the pantyhose?) to be the thing that ties the trees to Him while they are young. When the storms of life come and threaten to blow them down, we moms hold on to them and pull them back to God. As they mature, they need the pantyhose less and less as their roots develop and they learn to bend and not break in the wind.

One day the stake will be removed and the pantyhose will no longer hold the trees to it because the stake (God) will then reside within their hearts. It seems a little sad for the mom, but not really. As I look around the yard, I see the other more mature trees. They are tall and beautiful. They are sturdy and strong. They have been through many storms and stood their ground. When our children mature, they take their place next to us but are not held by us, as we grow up in God’s will, side by side.
Well, I guess that is one way to look at it.

(I wrote this before we had the big snow storm that broke a lot of trees on our property. I'm happy to say, the three baby trees held...the pantyhose did their job!)