when the beautiful causes pain

Tonight with the help of my parents, we cut down the tree in the front of our house.  While right now it's beautifully blooming and welcoming spring, it was unfortunately planted too close to the house and is/can cause problems.  When we first bought our house the inspector said we should remove it because the roots could affect the foundation, the branches tear our screens, the siding would be discolored from the tree blocking it, and I can't plant anything in the flower bed since no sun or rain would be able to nurture it.  At first I was against taking it down, because it does bloom beautifully for a short while in the spring, however that isn't worth the long-term issues that we could have.  Branches are growing through the screens and into our living room when the windows are open, and I'm over not being able to see out our front windows.

I was initially just going to blog about saying goodbye to the tree, but I had a deeper thought and decided to run with it.  How often in life do the beautiful things cause us pain?  Especially today in our society, where "beauty" is everywhere but is often anything but.  And I can't help but think about how adoption is such a beautiful way to grow a family and representation of Christ's love, however it isn't all happy and comes from and causes pain as a birth family chooses a different life for their child, or a child is orphaned, or a birth family's rights are removed.  And how much more does this also represent the gospel, the fact that we are wholly, unconditionally loved, given freedom from our sins and life eternal, yet for this to happen Jesus had to endure the greatest of pain by death on the cross before the beauty of the gospel could be complete.  Something to think about.  I'm thankful God can remind me of these things amidst every day life.