The Bare Tree That Spoke to a Soldier

In the winter of 1632, an eighteen-year-old French soldier named Nicholas Herman stood staring at a leafless tree in the frozen countryside of Lorraine. The branches were stripped bare, grey and skeletal against a slate sky. Yet something stirred in him — a sudden, overwhelming awareness that the same God who would clothe that tree in blossoms come spring was present with him at that very moment.

He did not know what to do with the experience. For years it haunted him — a voice he could not name, a presence he could not shake. He tried soldiering. He tried working as a footman in a Parisian household. Nothing quieted the stirring.

It was not until he entered a Carmelite monastery in Paris and placed himself under the guidance of older brothers that he began to understand. Like Eli instructing young Samuel, these seasoned men of faith helped Nicholas recognize what had been happening all along: God had been calling him — not once, but again and again.

Nicholas Herman became Brother Lawrence, whose slim volume The Practice of the Presence of God has taught millions to listen for the voice of the Almighty in the most ordinary moments. But it all began with a young man who heard something he could not explain and needed a wise guide to help him finally say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."