Trees Part 6

July 19, 2026

Last Sunday afternoon, I was driving home from the grocery store. It was twilight after a rain, and I had been thinking about our daughter Lauren all day. She was deeply in my heart. Perhaps I had dreamed about her the night before, or perhaps grief had brought her near again. But on that drive, something happened that I will never forget.

I do not pretend to understand synchronicity. Some people call such things “God’s winks”—those moments when the invisible seems to brush against the visible, when heaven seems to lean close enough for us to feel it. We received it as a sign from heaven as plain as day. Whatever we call them, something happened that touched my heart when driving home that afternoon. And it would not have happened if I had not been looking into the trees.

That hour of the day, also called dusk, is a liminal space. It is neither day nor night. It is an in-between time. To me, it is not eerie, but enchanting. It feels as if the world is saying goodbye to one thing and greeting another at the same time. That Sunday afternoon, the sun was lowering, and the entire world seemed washed in a soft golden light. The rain had left everything shining.

As I drove, I noticed the glow filling the trees on both sides of the street and in everyone’s yards. The wet leaves glistened as if they were holding light. Then, to my left, high in the branches, I saw something unusual. A large brown bird lifted from one of the trees. It was not a hawk, though we have many hawks in our neighborhood. This bird moved differently. It had a mystery about it.

Suddenly, it swooped down over the hood of my car. For a moment, I still could not tell what kind of bird it was. Then it rose and perched on the telephone line to my right. There it sat, looking directly down at me.

Our eyes met.

It was an owl.

The owl was Lauren’s favorite bird. Since childhood, she had collected little owl totems and figures. They delighted her. They belonged to her world.

No one could ever convince me that this was merely a coincidence. My heart was too touched, too encouraged, too awakened to believe it was anything other than a sign. In that golden dusk, after the rain, with Lauren so near in my heart, the owl came from the trees and looked at me.

I believe God used everything—the rain, the twilight, the golden light, the owl, my grief, and my longing. But the first invitation came through the trees. They drew my eyes upward. They opened a doorway. They made me wonder.

Perhaps trees do this for us more often than we know. They stand between earth and sky, rooted in one world and reaching toward another. They ask us to lift our eyes. They teach us that life is always connected to what we can see and to what we cannot see. They remind us that love does not end.

Sometimes grace comes not as an answer, but as a presence. Sometimes it comes with wings. Sometimes it comes at dusk, after rain, from the branches of a tree.

Spiritual Practice

As you look at the trees, to what do they invite you?

Inquiry

What are some ways trees may speak to you?

Prayer

Dear God,

For these pointers toward heaven, for your trees, I am so thankful.

Amen