Allie the acorn had been growing since last spring, and now it was time to drop. The nights had grown cool. The leaves of the trees around her had turned brilliant colors of orange, red, yellow and tan.
Drop was never easy. So much depended on doing it right. A matter of life and death, drop would determine the future for each acorn growing on Parent Oak.
Allie looked all around. Shivered a little. Said her good-byes to Parent Oak. Closed her little acorn-eyes, and let go of the branch that had borne her.
Down she fell. Down. Down. And landed on the ground with a loud, "Plop!"
Allie looked around. She could see other acorns, but none so close that she would have to struggle against them to reach for the sky. She wiggled a little to feel the soil under her feet. She could tell that it was a nice, dark loam, just right for putting down roots.
"I did it!" she said to herself. "I did it! This is a great place to grow!" Feeling very happy, Allie snuggled into the cool, dark soil. Soon she fell into the beginnings of her long winter sleep.
Then all of a sudden, Allie could feel something wet. And she was moving! She opened her eyes, and she saw a big wet tongue! And worse, sharp teeth!
"Help! Help!" she cried with all her might. "I'm being eaten alive!"
But the squirrel paid no attention to Allie. He just went on about his business of storing nuts for winter. Soon, he had located just the right place to hide Allie. He spit her out, and poked her down a small hole under the fence.
"She will make a nice snack some night this winter," the squirrel thought to himself. "And she will be easy to find right here under the fence." Then he started away to find more acorns.
Allie looked up, and saw the board fence hovering over her head. She wiggled a little to feel the soil, and it felt rocky and not at all like the kind of place to put down roots.
Feeling very panicky, Allie called after the squirrel, "Hey, squirrel, don't leave me here! This isn't where I am supposed to grow! The ground is hard, and there is a big fence over my head!"
The squirrel stopped for just a second. He looked back at Allie and said, "Be quiet, or I'll eat you now – instead of later."
Instantly, Allie grew very quiet, as the squirrel turned and scrambled across the lawn and back into the woods. Allie laid there in silence all the rest of the day.
The next morning Allie began thinking, "Maybe the squirrel will forget me during the winter. Parent Oak always said that God made squirrels very forgetful, so that most of the acorns they hid would grow into strong oak trees. I sure hope that is true."
And so Allie began looking around. The soil was still rocky. The fence was still right over her head. Looking a little further, she saw that she was too close to the road, and she was right beside a driveway.
"This will never do," she thought. "Parent Oak warned us about roads and driveways. If I grow here my acorns will fall and the cars will squash them on the road, and on the driveway too."
Then she realized that she was totally surrounded by people's lawns. "Oh no, I'm in the middle of a great big lawn! Parent Oak said to never drop on a lawn, because lawn mowers will come along and cut you down!"
Just then Allie saw a cat walking across the lawn. "Hey, cat!" she called. "Please help me. A squirrel carried me out of the woods and dropped me here. Could you please carry me back into the woods, because this is a terrible place to grow."
But cats are all very stuck up, and the cat just pretended to not even hear Allie.
Two days later, a big fat toad hopped by the fence.
"Hey, toad, could you help me, please?" Allie pleaded.
But the toad was busy catching bugs to eat. He needed to be very fat if he was going to be able to live through the long winter sleep. For a minute it looked like he might help Allie, but then he spotted a big juicy bug. The bug was much more important to him, and so he went hopping away after it.
The next day, Allie was so sleepy she could hardly open her eyes. But she had to keep awake so that she could find someone to carry her back into the woods. Forcing her little eyes open, she saw that the whole world had been turned white.
The snow was very bright in the cold air. But by squinting her eyes, Allie could see across the snow-covered lawn. Suddenly a little girl came out of the house to play in the snow.
"She could carry me back into the woods," Allie thought. "Little girl! Little girl, please help me!"
But the little girl could not hear Allie, because humans are not used to listening to acorns.
The little girl made snow-angels all over the lawn, but she never heard Allie's desperate pleas for help. And when the little girl tired of playing in the snow, she went back into the house. And there was no one else stirring anywhere. Everyone was beginning the long winter sleep, and Allie was very, very sleepy herself. Finally as night came, Allie could hold her eyes open no longer. She dropped off into the long sleep of winter.
The next spring the snow began to melt, and a big drop of ice-water rolled off the snow and fell right onto Allie's back.
"Ahhhh!" she cried out. "That's cold!"
She wiggled a little deeper into the rocky soil to get warmed up again. Then she realized that it must be spring, because the soil was starting to get warm. Excited, she looked around as best she could. She could see crocuses poking their flowers up through the snow. And a big clump of daffodils was growing right next to Allie. Their yellow-green buds would soon open into big, yellow, trumpet-like flowers.
"But I'm still under the fence!" Allie cried out in desperation.
The squirrel had forgotten her. She was glad of that. But she was still in a very bad place to grow!
"Too late!" she cried, as she looked down and saw her root was already diving into the rocky soil. And she looked over her shoulder, and her back already had a big crack going across it. Any day now, a tiny stem would pop out of her back to push her first leaves into the sunlight.
"Too late. It's too late," Allie said to herself. "I'm going to grow here under this fence, next to the road and a driveway, and surrounded by lawn!" She began to cry.
And that is where Allie grew up. She broke the boards in the fence as she grew right through it. The people cut off two of her limbs, just so they could take out the fence that she had broken. And every year, she choked on the fumes from the cars and trucks driving by. She watched her acorns get squashed on the road and in the driveway. She saw their little sprouts get mowed off in the lawn. The people even cut off some of her roots when they put in a wide sidewalk. Oh yes, it was a very bad place to grow.
Over the years, Allie watched the little girl and her brother grow up. They had children of their own. Allie was happy for them, because they were so happy.
But Allie was sad for herself. Not one of her acorns ever got a chance to grow up. They were always getting squashed by cars and mowed off by lawn mowers. She hated watching them die, one after another. Allie almost wished that she could stop producing acorns so that she would not have to watch any more of them die.
Then one day the girl and her brother had brought their children to visit their grandparents. The children were playing outside, under Allie's spreading branches. They did not see a speeding car coming around the curve in the road. And they did not see it cross into the other lane, and over curb, and onto the sidewalk. They did not see it coming right at them.
But everyone heard the loud noise when the speeding car crashed right into Allie's huge trunk. The girl and her brother and the grandparents came running out of the house to see if their children had gotten hurt. They swept up the children and held them in their arms, while everyone cried in relief that the children had not been hurt. And they were happy to see that the driver of the car was not hurt either.
But then the girl looked at Allie's trunk. "There's a big hole in the bark of the oak tree," the girl said. "I hope that it will be alright."
"It's a good thing that oak trees are so strong," her brother added. "That tree just saved the lives of our children."
"You know," the girl said to her parents. "I always wondered why you let that tree grow there, especially when it broke the fence. But now I know why it was there. It grew there all these years, just so that it could save the lives of our children today."
"Thank God it was there," the grandparents said. "We had talked about cutting it down many times, because of the mess it's acorns always made on the driveway and in the yard. But I sure am happy that we let it grow."
Allie straightened herself when she heard what the people were saying about her. She even stood a little taller.
"Mommy," the girl's son said to her, "the tree saved your children. Maybe we should save it's children."
The girl looked down at the driveway. Acorns lay everywhere, and some were already squashed.
"Son, that's not a bad idea," the girl said. "Let's gather up these acorns and we can take them around town and plant them all over the place!"
The grandchildren all cheered at that idea, and they began filling their pockets with acorns. They filled buckets and bags with acorns. They filled the wagon and the wheelbarrow with acorns. They even filled the cat's food dish with acorns, just so they could carry more acorns all over town.
Allie cried happy tears as she watched all her acorns being picked up. And she cried more happy tears as she watched the people planting her acorns all over town. And she cried even more happy tears, as she thought about what their little sprouts would look like the next spring.
That evening, after all her acorns had been planted, Allie thought to herself, "This is not such a bad place to grow after all. In fact, I like it here!" And all that night she rocked her limbs back and forth in praise of God, who had sent a forgetful squirrel to plant her in this wonderful place.
Questions for Meditation, Discussion or Preaching
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
