The Growth we Don't See

Cold. Barren. Frost covered.

The ground firm beneath each step I take.

Lifeless poles with spindly limbs are what the trees I walk among have become.

There is no snow yet to cover the barren landscape around me. The death that precedes the coming winter glaringly obvious to anyone walking through it.

It's hard to find the beauty at this time. The colours of earlier in fall are gone. No brightly coloured leaves remain. All that is left is gray and brown.

Lifeless. Dead.

Our lives can feel like that sometimes. Everything that once brought life and colour gone. Nothing but dull and drab left behind.

When the snow of winter finally comes with its blanket of white, we longer see the dead and lifeless all around. We see the beauty of the white blanket reflecting the light instead.

The snow covers and protects the work of new life that is already beginning. It holds the beginnings of that new life deep inside until it's ready to see the world outside when spring comes.

The same is true for our lives. Everything can feel dead and buried in snow. No growth happening yet, that we can see. But, deep inside, God is already beginning His work - He is creating new life. When the time is right, the snow will melt and new life will emerge. It's now ready to grow into what God created it to be.

We don't always see it that way, but the times when everything seems dead and completely buried, are the times when God is still at work. Deep inside, new growth is beginning. We can't see it yet, but it is there. 

And when the time that feels so cold and dark is over, the new growth will be strong enough to emerge and begin to produce something beautiful. Something that wouldn't have been able to grow without the time where everything felt dead.