Bryce Canyon Utah

The picture was taken in Bryce Canyon the winter or 2024. I love trees like this because they have taken all nature can through at it and it's still standing: sun wind storms, snows and rains, lightening strikes, droughts and floods, fires, earthquakes, pests, animals and humans. It has a rugged beauty the younger, healthier trees don't. The poem Big Timbers by David Malloch sums it up well.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

The struggles we face make us into Big Timbers. We might not be the tallest, most robust tree in the forest, but we have faced each trial that came our way and continued to hold on and we add our unique beauty to the world.

This tree is not classically beautiful, but it is to me because of what it teaches me. I am not the same person I was before my pain began. I am not as young and beautiful, or as sharp mentally, as I once was, but like this tree I still have something to give to the world. I can be a Big Timber even if it's just in the life of my children, being a kind, loving husband, and helping other people in pain.

How can you be a Big Timber?