Winter melts to spring

Where I live, during a typical winter, we'll have snow on the ground for a while, then it will melt and we'll have bare ground for a while, then it will snow again. This winter, we've had snow on the ground since December 26.

Now, slowly, winter is starting to turn to spring. I think the coming of spring is a good metaphor for many things in life. We see signs of spring, but then it snows. We have a warm day, but then it's cold. The journey is not a straight line, but ultimately, we do move forward from winter into spring.

I found the same pattern in recovering from illness. I think the pattern can also be applied to our entire lives. In general, we become wiser as we grow older, but we certainly have some lapses into lack of wisdom along the way.

For us, the snow that has been with us all winter started melting on Saturday, March 5. By the morning of Sunday, March 6, it looked like this:

It continued to melt through the day on Sunday, so by the afternoon, it looked like this:

That night, it snowed, so the next morning, Monday, March 7, it looked like this:

The snow remained the same for several days. The night of Thursday, March 9, there was some rain, so by the morning of Friday, March 11, it looked like this:

Friday, March 11 was warm, with the temperature getting up to 53, so there was a lot of melting. By the morning of Saturday, March 12, we had this:

With branches bent

In my previous post, I admired a sycamore reaching for the sky and sun. Maybe I meant it as an exhortation to myself to try to make things better. But I think I am really more like this tree:

I reach for the sky with one branch, but other branches are broken. And my trunk is sideways because of the burdens pressing down on me.