I grew up in a house situated on a tiny lawn with a ginormous unkempt magnolia tree in the back and a mighty oak in the front. The land and house were not large enough for those trees and they created a bit of a mess of the lawn with roots and affecting drainage. But I didn’t understand any of that as a child and it didn’t matter too much – it was my yard to navigate. I loved those trees and felt like they were planted just for me, and I hold on to memories of those trees today.
I love magnolia blooms. They’re beautiful. And they smell glorious. I love walking around and catching a whiff of a magnolia bloom before I notice the tree. And it seems so wrong to pluck a bloom – everyone who walks the same path deserves to catch the same scent and then turn and see the same beauty I’ve experienced. I might take a petal with me though, if there are not too many critters to fight and I can reach a bloom easily. Sometimes I rub my skin with the fragrance from the petal. Magnolia blooms are a reminder of the glory of creation – it’s pretty and it smells nice.
I always called the tree in our front yard an “acorn tree” because, well, acorns. Because there are so many kinds of oak trees, I don’t always recognize them immediately on sight. But I recognize them by their fruit – when I see acorns on the ground, I smile and look for the “acorn tree” it fell from. And when I do I’m usually surprised to realize I’m absolutely surrounded by them. The greatest of them make the best shade trees, as did my “acorn tree”. Despite the ubiquitous nature of the acorn, they turn up during critical moments like messages from God.
The first time I received a message in the form of an acorn, it was one of many in a series all in the same day. I had decided, rather logically and fairly stoically that I wanted to die. I selected a date of death and prayed for a clear sign from God if there was anything good to come in my future. And the acorn was the first message I saw. This acorn turned up in a place where there were no trees around when I looked up. It saved my life. I found them in the weirdest places all day – in places where there were no “acorn trees” nearby – in between seeing suicide hotline numbers written in chalk nearly everywhere I walked that day.
The second time I received a message in the form of an acorn, it was startling and a bit unclear at first. A young oak tree was placed in front of the door where I worked and could look at it the entire workday. Then it was moved a little further down the lawn and another oak planted in its place. In a couple of years the oak tree that had been moved produced an impossibly large number of acorns and they were the largest I’d ever seen – larger than walnuts. I don’t claim to know anything at all about the propagation of “acorn trees” or what all acorns look like, but everyone I’ve mentioned this to and the people who witnessed them observed that this was particularly odd and no one had ever seen acorns quite so large. The message was one of hope and I received it just before a major life change – I entered a season of growth, learning things that were clearly preparing me for my life’s dream.
The third time I received a message in the form of an acorn was just a few days ago. And it’s a message of hope and courage, something to push me through the fear that’s stopping me from continuing to move in the direction of my dreams. I recently found a renewed energy to continue towards making an abundant life in spite of all the disappointments and delays, but fear proved to be a formidable obstacle in a way it never had before. I found one acorn on the stairs toward my living area – literally inside the house – and then a second upstairs in my living area. This was the most startling find because there is no oak tree at our house and the acorns were too large to fit in the sole of a shoe nor likely to be tracked in by any source I can think of. It was incredibly odd to find them upstairs because I don’t go anywhere to track in acorns because, well, COVID.
The significance of acorns to me is two-fold. The fact that they were around during my childhood feels like a reminder of my origins and the place where I first became aware of my life’s dream and my life’s purpose. I recall I was about 11 years old on an afternoon that I should have been doing homework but was staring through the door at my “acorn tree” daydreaming when I formed the realization into a vision. This vision didn’t align with Mommy’s plans for me so I never told anyone until after both my parents died. I did imagine it would happen much later in life even though I hoped it would begin in my mid-twenties. As I am beyond my mid-twenties, I suppose my imagining was correct. On the other side of the same “acorn” coin, an acorn represents a seed – a relatively tiny seed that in a lot of time has the potential to grow into something that we call mighty, something that provides a covering, something to climb, and something that remains strong and sturdy with deep roots for a very long time while remaining abundantly fruitful. To sum it up, the acorn is a reminder of possibilities that manifest relatively slowly but are effectively everlasting. And thus they serve as a reminder of my life dreams that are manifesting slowly but will be something that others call mighty and will last for generations.
I am Regina Lynette. Acorns are my life.
I am Regina Lynette 