i am a wintery branch for now

this past winter i've noticed something i don't think i'd ever given much attention to: wintery tree branches.

i've always enjoyed the new life of trees in the spring, the lush and shade of them in the summer and leaves changing color in the fall.... but never, the seemingly dead, bare branches we commonly see in the winter months. but this year, i seem to be mesmerized by them, the shadows they form, the way you can see the beautiful sunset through their bareness... i just love it.

yesterday, while i was walking through my neighborhood (which has an excellent variety of trees), i began to have the sense that God was trying to tell me something through his creation. He reminded me that the branches are still alive contrary to their outward appearance. although the trees have lost their leaves, their fruit for the season, in just a couple months, new growth will happen - the tree will again be fruitful. we will once again be blessed by the fullness of the trees - by the shade they provide us, the soft rustling of their leaves in the wind, the songs of the birds that dwell in their branches.

i share this because this past year i have felt like these wintery branches. i sometimes feel like the life inside me is overruled by sorrow and grief; these two things are hard to overcome. i wonder if people see me as i once saw trees during the winter months. its okay if they do, i sometimes do. but i am now encouraged. encouraged because there is still life inside me - His life. and while i cannot see what things will become months or years from now, i know i will overcome.

this is my winter season. and like in the natural world, my spring will come.

........................................

sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom? but we hope it, we know it.

-johann wolfgang von goethe