A Parable

We have been working on the Gathering Parables in Matthew 13 in seminary this week.  I learned a lot about what the Savior was trying to teach and even found myself wanting to improve in some areas of my life.  

To finish this area of study, I decided to share a modern day parable with my class.  This being the Northwest I felt a parable involving a tree would be appropriate.

The Parable of Little Spruce

Poor Little Spruce was sad. She was not tall and glorious like the whispery aspen. She could not grow apples like the apple tree. She did not have an invigorating pine scent like the proud, bushy pine tree. She was very unhappy.

She asked her friend Raccoon to dot pine sap on her branches, and Raccoon was glad to help. And it worked! The smell of pine emanated from her branches, adding to the delicious, earthy scent of the forest.

Until it rained and the pine sap washed off her.

“Maybe I can bear fruit!” she said when her cones grew in.  She concentrated very, very  hard on them, and sent every bit of her sap to the tips of her branches in hopes the cones would turn into apples.  But they did not turn into apples. Or any other kind of edible fruit.

“Well, anyway, what I really want is to be tall like the other trees,” she said.  So she asked her friend Squirrel to tie a rope to her tip-top, and then attach the other end to the tip-top of the tallest aspen. Squirrel did his best to pull the rope tighter and tighter, so that it would stretch her out and make her tall like the aspen. 

But it did not.

“I have nothing to offer the world!” She moaned.

That’s when the Creator came walking by, “Oh silly Little Spruce.” He said.  “I already have a whispery aspen, an apple tree, and a pleasing scented pine tree. I do not need you to be any of those things.”

“But Creator, I’m just nothing. Just a little scrub of a tree.”

“You already please me, Little Spruce. You are exactly as I created you to be, and you are good.” He told her gently touching her branches.

“I do? I am?” Little Spruce asked, “Really?”

“Really Little Spruce!” the Creator chuckled as He continued His walk through the forest.

I please the Creator just as I am. He made me just the way He wanted me! She thought.  The idea pleased Little Spruce to no end.  She couldn’t think about her smallness anymore, because she couldn’t stop thinking about how she pleased the Creator and how he made her so unique. Finally, she could hold it in no longer.

“Thank you Creator, for the way you made me! Thank you for all the different kinds of trees! You are an awesome Creator!” She pointed her branches to heaven, and just thought about the Creator.

Suddenly, her trunk began to stretch toward heaven. She pointed her tip-top to where the Creator sat. She heard the Creator chuckle with delight.

“Thank you!” she called.

And she spent the rest of her life praising the Creator, in snow, and in sun and in rain. She praised Him when hunting eagles perched atop her branches, and when hikers rested in her shade. She never thought about her height again, only about the Creator.  And she taught her children to do the same.

It is a simple parable, but the message is something I think every person has struggled with in their lifetime. 

To really bring the message home I gave each of my students a little tree grow kit.

It will be interesting to see if the trees will grow as well as my students do!