The Weight of the Snow

A February storm swept through our mountains yesterday and deposited clumps of heavy snow on the branches of the Ponderosa pines surrounding the house.  The branches, weighed down with their burdens, were bent, almost touching the ground. 

But this morning a new world greeted me through the living room windows.  The sky is the brightest blue I have ever seen.  The sun is kissing the earth with its warmth and making blue shadows on the snow blanket.  The trees, still bent and burdened, are beginning to feel the warmth of the sun.  As each branch is touched with the sun’s rays, it begins to shed the burden that has threatened to break it in two.

It’s a beautiful sight to watch each of those branches release its burden to the sun and unbend its body, becoming straight and alive again.

 

This morning’s unburdening is gentle.  One by one the trees awake from the nightmare of yesterday and with the help of the sun, the snow slips to the ground.

There are times when the wind blows after a storm and the unburdening is not so gentle.  The wind whips through the trees and shakes the branches to release their snow cargo.  This too, is healthy.  As the trees deposit the snow under their branches, they also deposit the dead pine needles that have been helping to hold that snow in place. 

Have you ever thought that our lives are like those of the trees.  When storms come and deposit burdens of worry and frustration on us, we’re bent.  Sometimes those burdens are so heavy that we feel we can’t move.  Sometimes we feel that we will break in two like the branches.  Once in a while we do break, whether it’s our heart that breaks or whether the life we’d planned breaks apart.  But along with the trials, there are days that we have sunshine to warm us and allow the burdens to melt and slide away.

I love being able to see God work in the world around me.  Since my imagination works overtime, it’s easy for me to make the connection between what I see with my eyes, and what I believe God is telling me through those events.

God’s love is warming my heart when I’ve gone through a storm and picked up a burden that weighs me down.  I see Him melting that cold heart of mine in order to allow the burdens to slip into His hands – His nail scarred hands.

There are also times when I require a strong wind to shake the dead stuff that’s keeping me from releasing those burdens and cleaning up the branches of my life. 

God is a God of love, who will do whatever it takes to help us see Him in our trials – but only if we ask Him to.  If we just want an easy life – if we don’t want to grow – if we're not willing to bend with the trials, we'll  probably never really appreciate the warmth of the sunshine or the cleansing winds that God puts into our lives.

Isn't it amazing what a snow storm will teach us?