Wednesday's Word: Oaks Of Righteousness

 

The SPIRIT of the LORD GOD is upon me, because the LORD has
anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of glad tidings
to the meek, the poor, and afflicted;  He has sent me to bind up
and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives...

To grant consolation and joy in Zion...the garment of praise
instead of a heavy, burdened, and failing spirit...that they may be
 called, OAKS of RIGHTEOUSNESS...the planting of the LORD."
(Isaiah 61:1, 3)

The Big Oak located in Thomasville, Georgia dates back to 1680 
and is one of the largest of its kind east of the Mississippi River. 

 Photograph courtesy/Atlas Obscura

Then on a stately Oak I cast mine Eye,

Whose ruffling top the Clouds seem'd to aspire;

How long since thou wast in thine Infancy?

Thy strength and stature, more thy years admire,

Hath hundred winters past since thou wast born?

Of thousand since thou brakest thy shell of horn,

If so, all these as nought, Eternity doth scorn.

19th century artistic rendering of Anne Bradstreet
by Edmund H. Garrett (1853-1929)

American illustrator and highly respected painter

An excerpt from the poem,
"Contemplations"
Anne Bradstreet
(1612-1672)
 Puritan religious poetess and the first writer
 in the American English colonies to be published.