The Nurse Log

In the old-growth forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, hikers often notice something remarkable: perfectly straight rows of towering Western hemlocks and Sitka spruces growing in elevated lines through the forest. Rangers call them "colonnades," and their origin tells a story that echoes across centuries.

Each colonnade began with a single massive tree that fell to the forest floor. Rather than rotting into nothing, that fallen giant became what ecologists call a "nurse log" — a dying tree that pours every nutrient it possesses into sustaining new life. Its decaying wood retains moisture during dry summers. Its bark shelters seedlings from frost. Its body lifts young saplings above the smothering shade of the forest floor. Over decades, dozens of trees take root along its spine, growing tall and strong while the nurse log slowly gives itself away completely — until nothing remains but the living forest it nourished.

The nurse log does not fall by accident. Its falling is the condition for the colonnade's existence.

When Jesus declared, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many," He was describing something far greater than noble sacrifice. He was revealing the very pattern woven into creation itself. The Almighty chose to lay Himself down — not from weakness, but from a love so deliberate that it would become the foundation on which countless lives could finally stand tall and take root in grace.