The Promise

The pine tree was majestic, rising over 150 feet into the sky and soaking its roots in the waters of Sweetwater Creek. He was inaccessible to this young boy who could not yet swim, but I was sure that if we could have gotten to the other side, it would have taken at least four of us to reach around his massive trunk. When I first saw this gentle giant of the forest I was about 12 years old.

He became my friend watching over me as I grew older and visited the creek regularly to tempt its catfish and bream with my offerings of night crawlers and crickets. I think he must have smiled at me the day I caught six small channel cats under the shadow of his branches. Surely he wept with me as I sadly walked along the opposite bank late one fall afternoon after breaking up with my girlfriend. He stood sentinel over me one spring night as I camped under his watchful gaze.

There was a time when we didn’t see each other. I had gone off to college and had all but forgotten my youthful forays into the wilds along the creek. Study of physics, chemistry and comparative anatomy had stolen away the more carefree days of fishing, hunting and camping. But as I grew into manhood in the city, my friend continued to grow in the forest.

Finally, it came time for us to meet. I had recently bought the jeep I had always wanted. I knew there was a way to get down to the bank on the other side of the creek because I remember having seen another jeep on that side years ago when I was a teenager. I found the old timber road that led down through the forest where he had stood for decades. I am sure he held his breath as I fought my way down the eroded and treacherous track that led under his branches, a track that had not been used for many years except by other 4X4’s. At last, I stood in the shadow of this old friend and looked up into the canopy. I had not been mistaken, this truly was a giant. I touched the scarred trunk that had survived many spring floods. There had been times when these flood waters had reached up his trunk at least six feet and had rearranged the rocky bottom of the creek and sent lesser trees downstream to be lodged between huge boulders. He was a survivor. He was eternal.


Years later, as a husband and father who still loved the outdoors and would often take my little daughter with me into the woods, I decided to return to my childhood haunts. I could no longer take the jeep into the woods alongside the creek as the land had been made into a state park. Parking the jeep just outside the park boundary, I gathered my fishing pole and my can of worms and started up the path that I had taken years ago as a young boy. The trail was almost unrecognizable, but years of treading on this path as a young boy had indelibly inscribed on my mind every hidden root and bend in the trail. There was the island where I used to fish for bluegills. There was the eddy behind the rock where I caught that largemouth bass, and there were the rapids where I once caught a rock bass.

Walking in a fog of nostalgia, I suddenly found myself across the creek from my old friend. Peering through the autumn foliage, I looked across the shoals to where he had stood guard for so many years. I was not prepared for what I saw. My friend had died. What once had been the pride of the hillside had been reduced to a skeleton. No green boughs waving in the wind, no prickly pinecones, just a brown, decaying shell. I wept. It was as if a part of me died right there on that creek bank. What had happened? Had it been a fire? Perhaps it had been southern pine beetles. I couldn’t tell. Most probably, it was just old age. I would like to think that he had died from an angry bolt of lightning, furious that anything had dared to rise above the surrounding canopy to challenge his domain.

I don’t know why I expected my old friend to live forever. I guess I had never come to grips with the reality that all things eventually die. The reality did nothing to take away the tightness in my throat, nor the tears flowing freely down my cheeks. I just stood there, alone in my grief, thankful that this trail was so infrequently used.


I began to cry out to God, “Father, why do things have to change? Why can’t they stay the same forever?” I hated change. I hated it when they tore down my old elementary school. I hated it when they built the new houses on the country road where I grew up. I hated it when they drained the swamp and put in the reservoir. And I hated it when my old friends died.

Then, from out of my innermost being, I heard a whisper. It was Father. It was as if I was at a funeral where only whispers are appropriate. He was honoring the moment. He whispered, “Son, all things must change. It is necessary, but you can be secure in this, I will never change.” Immediately, peace and comfort came and replaced the grief and consternation I had felt.

Many years have passed since that private memorial service on the banks of Sweetwater Creek. I haven’t been back in a long time and I am sure that there no longer remains even a trace of the existence of my old friend. My life has changed drastically since those days. I have become a father, a grandfather and live in another country as a missionary. Memories are all I have of those things that have changed over my lifetime. Memories, and a whispered promise , “I will never change.”