Bree Schlereth | Speaker + Storyteller

There is a tree between two worlds.

On one side, a building that represents one of the most painful part of my story. On the other, a baseball stadium that represents a new chapter for our family.
And right in the middle, a tree. 🌳
I noticed its beauty before I remembered the words of Isaiah 43:19:
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
I keep coming back to that question.

Do you perceive it?

Can we recognize what God is doing in a place that reminds us of what happened to us?
Can we acknowledge what was painful without allowing the pain to become the whole story?
Can we trust that becoming takes time—that not every leaf changes color at once, and that doesn’t mean the tree is behind?

Walking onto the Michigan State University campus for the first time was an experience I can’t fully put into words. It held grief and gratitude, old memories and new beginnings, all at once.

And there was this tree, standing quietly between them.

I don’t believe every painful thing happens for a reason we will understand. And I don’t believe redemption requires us to call our pain beautiful.
But I do believe God can meet us in places we never imagined returning to—and that the places connected to our hardest chapters don’t have to be the places where our stories end.
Maybe the new thing isn’t always a new place.
Maybe sometimes it’s a new way of seeing.

“Behold, I am doing a new thing… do you not perceive it?” — Isaiah 43:19

🍁What if your story is still unfolding in a place you thought would only ever remind you of the past?

#Isaiah4319 #FaithAndHealing #GodIsDoingANewThing #HealingJourney #MichiganStateUniversity