The tree planted by the water does not wither when the drought comes and the desert winds blow.
It doesn’t mean it’s not pretty dry out.  
After another weekend of pandemic preaching, wandering through an empty building that seems to get quieter each week while the outside voices get louder and hotter, I can feel the grit of the blowing sand.

My bark is dry.
Life is sustained and I am not withered.  My soul sits intact and secure, yet that’s not what it feels like.
It feels like dryness and wind.

Sitting in heaven, you never knew that feeling, did you?  But you came down, took on flesh, and experienced the best and worst of what it means to be human.
You got tired, so tired you slept through a storm.
You got lonely enough that after years of praying alone, you couldn’t bear to be alone on that terrible night and asked your friends to be with you.  
You got dry enough that you cried out to your Father and expressed your feelings of abandonment.
It wasn’t a sin, and it wasn’t a sign that you weren’t abiding in God.
You were just dry.
My bark is dry.
Its Monday and the deserts been a bit hotter lately.   My roots are ok, my leaves are green but
my bark is dry.