Snow is beautiful. It turns the normal, the everyday, into something profound. It all looks different, invites us to look at the world around us with fresh eyes. A blackbird in the neighbour’s garden drinking from the one spot where the water’s not frozen; chimney smoke drifting lazily across pale blue sky; the still, white woods in the distance, literally frozen, like nature is holding its breath to take it all in.
We have a yew tree in the garden. It’s a solid tree, taller than our house, with a thick crown and long, hefty branches, even low down on its trunk. Now these proud branches are weighed down with snow, bending in all directions.
It can look almost comical, the drooping branches, it’s „not normal“. But with too much weight, snap! The magic is lost.
The wonder of snow is in its lightness. It’s white and glittery and drifts so gently. It lays and piles up so unassumingly. It heaps itself on the thinnest of twigs. It’s marvelous, but if it doesn’t stop piling up, it can get too much. The branches fall, the house gets snowed in.
We have been made with an incredible capacity to carry and bear burdens. But like the snow, softly piling up, we don’t realise the mass upon our shoulders. It can seem comical sometimes, the overreactions and anxieties that overtake us, but we are off-centre, bending under the weight. There are many reasons we are overburdened, and sometimes life’s difficulties make it unavoidable.
My desire is to be able to stand strong under pressure, to not be buckled and broken. That would be enough for me, but I am not alone! What do I want to pass on from my life to those around me, my loved ones? Strength or brokenness? Beauty or bitterness?
Most importantly, I want to be able to see and feel things as they are: life is beautiful, and life is hard. And to know when to shake the snow off before it crushes me. Bend but don’t break.