The tree went down and I sat down on it. A friend of mine happened to stop by and I wondered if I should tell him of what just happened. You see, all my life I never – ever pictured myself as a Bible thumper. In just a matter of minutes of my experience with God, here comes someone I could tell. But the desire to not be a Bible thumper was a strong one, I gritted my teeth in anger to myself, as I thought about how stupid I was behaving. After all it is not like people interact with God through the normal course of one’s life. Besides, this friend of mine is family, he is religious, he is going to Cedarville College, he is a Christian, certainly he would appreciate the event that just happened to me.

My friend had a bit of a walk in front of him, I was out in a field and he could not drive out to me without leaving tracks in the yard. So as he got closer I tried to figure out just where I would start or what  I should say about the event. This is not easy for me because this is not a subject I would ever talk about in normal conversation. Even as he approached I had my doubts I would even say anything. Still, this is God that I had a run in with; how could I not speak of such a thing?

Well, I told him. He just looked at me for a moment, scratched his chin and said: “Yeah, God does some really strange things. Well, I got to be going. I came over thinking you were Paw cause you’re dressed just like him. But since your not him I’m going to go on over to his place. See ya.”

Away he walked. I just sat there on that tree and watched him go. I could hardly believe what just happened. I had expected so much more of a reaction. I had worked myself up emotionally. Truly I did expect some big enthusiasm out of my friend. I had built up – in the time it took my friend to cross the field – a vision in my mind that He would sit with me and ask me questions and I imagined myself walking him through an explanation. That my friend would be as excited as me and that maybe I would better understand what just happened through this interaction with him. I guess I expected with him being a student at Cedarville he would certainly be able to help me understand what just happened.

As my friend drove away I was emotionally drained. Sitting on that tree and knowing I had just had confirmation that God was real, Jesus was real and how big of an idiot I have been not really believing all my life and now I have my proof and was able to share it. What an emotional high knowing God truly exist was being juxtaposed against an emotional low of seeing how little impact my story had on my friend and a Christian. ( Later my friend told me he didn’t know if I was playing a joke on him or what. Because what I was telling him was so out of character for me.)

Well, I had a mess to cleanup. That tree needed to be loaded into my trailer and carted off to my house. I decided to put it out of my mind for awhile, get the wood home and then in the quiet of my house I would think more about what just transpired. 

So, I get a lot of the tree picked up and placed in the trailer. I was using a home made double axle trailer. Probably 12 foot long and a little over 4 1/2 feet wide. It has 3 foot sides on it too. I would imagine I probably hauled 6 loads of wood back my house. The rest of the bits and pieces ended up in the woods out back on the property. I spent several days gathering up the wood.

After I got my first days wood unloaded at home, I was able to sit and think about the tree. I have a analytical mind. And enjoy reasoning out difficult problems. So I began what turned out to be a long study about this tree situation. But on this night my focus was on what my encounter with God meant, but before I tell you that, I think you should read a little more about the event itself.

I guess I am going to tell you a little about what I was going to tell my friend on that day.

There were no words given to me by God. No thunder and lightning. Nothing special to mark the occasion except that the tree reversed its direction from falling down to lifting up. The action of the tree was quiet. No noise.  (See my earlier post to understand why I am writing about a tree.) The day started out like this: Sunny with blue sky, crisp and chilly. No wind to speak of and about half the fall foliage was already on the ground. The grass was still green and it was wet. So walking out to the field made your feet very wet and you would hear a crunching of some of the leaves under foot. This was a very good Friday for gathering fire wood. When you work hard cutting and lifting tree trunks you naturally like it when the air is cool.I arrived about 10 in the morning.

The tree I was after was situated between two other trees. So as I approached the site I was looking at a cluster of trees. Later I recognized that my tree was in the middle of two other trees and all three taken together looked like they formed a triangle of trees. You can see what the area looks like by going to YOUTUBE.COM and searching for Larry Splain’s tree. I took a video of the site about a year or so later when I was told the homeowner was going to pull the stump and maybe cut down the other trees. I wanted to preserve for myself what it all looked like.

I used my Stihl chainsaw to cripple cut the tree I wanted. I only had one direction available for the tree to be felled. I ran my tractor and trailer up to the tree and parked them just to the right of where I expected the tree to fall. The rig would be parallel the tree after the tree came down. It would make it easy to load the trailer too as I wouldn’t have far to walk with the wood. I then stepped behind the tree and made my relief cut. I cut that tree till there was only 3/4 inch of wood left uncut. This 3/4 inch was to act as a hinge for when the tree fell. I do not cut trees all the way through because when they fall you cannot control where they bounce. The hinge of wood is just enough to blunt any attempt by the tree to bounce uncontrollably.

Problem was, the tree was sitting so perfectly balanced that after the cut, it just stood there. This tree was about 23 inches thick at it’s base and easily 80 foot tall, maybe more. It is a very big tree for here in central Ohio. But I have cut bigger and I knew that I could cut the hinge a little bit more, which I did. Now the hinge is probably 1/2 inch thick. Knowing this I figured I could just push against the tree and get it rocking. Once that tree moved far enough off center I knew from past experience she would come down.

I pushed. Nothing moved. I pushed some more. Still nothing moved. Now I stand 6 feet tall and weigh in around 245. I used to lift weights when I was younger. Been lifting heavy loads all my life. I was shocked to say the least when after an hour’s worth of very hard pushing all I could see move were the littlest of branches and all they were doing is just wiggling. My back, up between my shoulders was really burning. Sweat rolled off my forehead and down the back of my shirt. I got so warm that I threw off my coat. Every few minutes of pushing I would take a break, I would walk over about 3 paces to the one tree opposite of where my tractor stood, place my upper back against the tree and give myself a little back message against the tree trunk.

Looking back at that tree I would get mad at myself and tell myself if I would just push harder it would go down. So after several trips back and forth to my message tree, I thought maybe I could get a rope or chain and fasten it to my tractor and pull the tree over. Problem was that I had neither. Both were at home and I really did not like driving 4 miles home and 4 miles back all the while leaving this tree unattended. It would be just my luck that one of the grandkids of the woman who’s property I was on would be standing there near the tree when the tree came down. No sir, I just couldn’t take the chance.

My wife is a long distance runner and was currently away from home on a fifty mile training run. No chance for me to call her and have her come over to babysit the tree while I run back to the house to get a chain. Also the homeowner was not on site either so I figured getting this tree down was all on me. I even contemplated driving the tractor up between the two other trees and using the bumper to fell the tree. But, there is much danger in doing that. Should the tree fall backwards instead of forwards I would be trapped behind the wheel and between both trees. Besides, the homeowner had an old hammock strung up between the trees and probably 10 miles of rope wrapped around those trunks, I didn’t want to fool with that option anyway.

So back to pushing I went. Madder and madder I got with myself. Why did I keep giving up the pushing of the tree? If I just would try a little harder I know it will move… Maybe I should go ahead and cut through the base… I did grab the piece of wood that came from the cripple cut and jam it into the relief cut, pounded it with a sledge hammer. But it shattered and the tree still stood rock solid.

Finally, in desperation, I thought of that verse in the bible; Whatever you ask for in my name I will do. (Later I found the verse: John 14:14) So I placed my left hand on the trunk of the tree and said: Jesus, I don’t know if your Bible is true or not. . .

I want you to know about how I came to know Jesus Christ is alive. This is a republishing of my early blog post. If you read this it will start you on a series of blogs leading up to where I am at today. Just follow the links. 10/22/19.

In the fall of 2012 I had an encounter with God. It happened when I was out cutting down dead Ash trees. The tree I had cut with my chain saw would not fall down no matter what I did and in frustration, I put my left hand on the trunk of the tree and said these words: 

“Jesus, I do not know if if your Bible is true or not, but it says somewhere in it that whatever I ask for in your name you will do. Well Jesus, I need your help getting this tree dow . . . ”

That is as far as I got with my words. The tree, that I spent over an hour trying to fell down, suddenly began to fall over. I jumped back about 3 paces and at an angle away from the rear of the tree. Spun around to watch the tree fall and as I looked it occurred to me that the tree was about to fall on my Massey Ferguson 135 tractor. Without even thinking, I ran back to the tree with my arms out in front of me and said “Wait, wait, wait.”.  That was all I said.

The tree was about 80 feet long and I guess it would weigh in about 8,000 pounds. Maybe more. I never stopped to figure it out. But, that tree was nearly to the ground when it stopped moving in mid air, and began to lift itself back up as it returned to the upright position on its own cut trunk.

I was standing right behind the tree. Looking straight at it as it returned to an upright position. I did not think to move out of the way or nothing. I just stood there. Frozen in the moment. Not able to think of anything except how that tree just did what it did.

As I stood there thinking it suddenly dawn on me that I had asked Jesus for His help. The tree was lifted up by Jesus. And more importantly, Jesus was still there with me as I knew I didn’t lift that tree up and I had yelled wait, wait, wait so he must be waiting on me. So I got down on one knee, looked to where the tree was headed when it was falling, I realized it was the angle that I backed away to that caused me to think the tree was going to hit my tractor. From a position directly behind the tree where I was now, I knew it was going to fall right where I wanted it to fall.

I stood back up and put my hands in my back pockets, and speaking directly to the tree said the most stupidest thing I could say to the Lord. I said, “It’s okay Jesus, you weren’t going to hit my tractor.” And without a further word or action from me that big old tree just fell to the ground with a thump.