Melting snow

I thoroughly enjoy the beauty of newly fallen snow that covers the ground and makes everything white. I love the cleanness, purity and peacefulness. There’s nothing like it. I also enjoy the landscape without snow, seeing the grass, maybe some flowers depending on the time of year, but I hate the days of melting snow.

When we recently experienced the rapid loss of snow I literally felt frustration and anger rise within me as I looked upon the once beautiful, covered land. It was ugly. Patches of snow, with wet, brown ground peering through. The once beautiful cleanliness was just a muddled mess, dirty and unsightly.

As I walked through that melting snow that was more mush than snow at that point, it hit me that this was the current state of my heart. A muddled, ugly mess. Maybe that’s why I had gotten so frustrated in the first place at the sight of it; I didn’t want to see the physical example of my emotional state. As the day wore on and most the snow had all but disappeared, I continued to ponder the snow and the natural melting of it. Snow must melt. Without melting, there would be no spring, no new growth. No flowers bursting forth to display their beauty. And as ugly as the process is from snow covered hills to the grass, leaves, and dirt below, it has to happen. It is a necessary evil.

My life was snow covered until recently. Things were in place, going as I would like. And while life wasn’t perfect by any means, I was pretty happy with it all. It was fairly clean and put in order, following the plans I had for us. But now, I am muddled. I am an ugly mess in the transition of life. There are days that are better and I think maybe all the snow has melted, but then something triggers the pains that I thought were through and I see the fields of white still covered as they have been shaded from the heat of the sun and I realize I’ve hardly begun the melting process.  There is a lot more ugliness to be had before spring arrives. Yet, I find hope in the thought that spring will indeed come and with it the fruits of new growth that have been nourished by the melting snow, regardless of how ugly and painful the process is. So I will continue to sit in melting snow, even though I really don’t like it, because I know the growth to come is worth it.