As I leaned back in the kitchen chair with a cup of coffee in my hand, a sliver of sunshine pierced through the deck window and interrupted my thoughts. Sweet sunshine; it is a difficult commodity to come by in the depths of winter and I just needed to stop as I felt it warm my face.
As I looked out the window I thought, here is something very severe, yet beautiful about the winter landscape. Especially the trees. They stand stand like soldiers and are eerily stoic in their presence. All of their camouflage of beautiful leaves had been stripped from a season gone by. Abandoned squirrel and birds nests align the highest of branches and red little berries have been left dangling on their own. I noticed that some of the trees had hung on to clusters of red and brown leaves, as if they didn’t know how to let go.
I looked at the stark naked trees and they reminded me of my life; no camouflage for me either. They stand still, eerily still. It’s as if their is a wisdom that lies in their deepest roots that sustain them, and they understand the importance their nakedness; their season of transformation.
And so now I know what I am. A very naked tree, and I too, have hung on to some leaves because I didn’t know how to let go. But nonetheless, my season changed, and I wascompletely stripped of a life gone by. But the miraculous metamorphosis that is taking place under the ground is where the true miracles are happening.
In the darkest winter days of grief and pain, vulnerability and despair will slowly change. It is the dormancy of the deep hard winter, and the darkest and coldest days of our grief that are the most important. The most essential growth and healing happens when we are the most vulnerable. You roots will sustain us through these winter days. They are deep and strong, and eventually the sun will warm your face again, and new growth will again come.
