The Tree on Riverside Drive

Every morning for thirty-seven years, Margaret Chen walked the same half-mile stretch along Riverside Drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She knew every tree on that path. But one silver maple held her attention more than the rest. It stood just six feet from the bank of the Tennessee River, its roots drinking deeply from the water table below. While other trees along the boulevard suffered during the drought of 2007 — leaves curling brown by July, branches cracking in August — that silver maple stayed lush and green. Its canopy actually grew thicker that summer.

Margaret's neighbor, a retired arborist named Dale Wofford, explained it simply: "That tree doesn't depend on the rain. Its roots found the river years ago. The drought doesn't change what feeds it."

Margaret thought about her own life — how she had watched friends build everything on career momentum, market trends, the shifting opinions of colleagues. When layoffs came or relationships fractured, they withered quickly, having nothing deeper to draw from. Meanwhile, the people she knew who had quietly anchored themselves in Scripture and prayer seemed to hold steady through those same seasons. Not untouched by hardship, but unuprooted.

The psalmist saw this three thousand years ago. The person who meditates on God's Word day and night becomes like a tree planted by streams of water. Not a tree that never faces drought — but one whose roots have found something the drought cannot reach. The Almighty offers that kind of rootedness to anyone willing to plant themselves beside the stream.