A Loss of the "Fullness"

Let not Easter be lost to us by the passing chime of one day to another but let it be a constant in our hearts that every day animates our life to love, service and good hope.  We lost a good friend at 3:12 this morning.  She had been hurt in the last tornado 10 or 15 years ago and had struggled and limped along gaining strength and stature with every year.  Two days ago my wife and I sat in the yard and talked about how she had seemed to turn the corner this year and was showing renewed vitality as she once had.  We were pleasured by her progress and heartened by her determination to hang on until she could thrive once again.  She was our friend, a Grand Tulip Poplar, the honored tree of the Great State of Tennessee.  She was felled by the storm that came through last night and as grace is carried in grand elegance, she gently fell into a neighboring friend who supported her from falling to the earth.  One clarion call of Easter is that the love He so gifts us with is born to all living things for, “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.” Psalms 24:1