It’s been a snowy start to January.
Not unusual, of course, where we live. Ski-lovers and snow enthusiasts are very happy, and I for one, enjoy seeing pictures of them having fun. From the comfort of my warm home.
My back reminds me of previous skiing injuries, and I’m not anxious to join in any snow sports. Which makes exercise a bit challenging this time of year. One day I did walking loops all through my house and that felt better. The Christmas chocolate has left it’s mark!
Snow is beautiful. I love seeing micro shots of a snowflakes shape, it is a wonder of nature, the creative art of God. Snowflakes are also fragile. Dainty, easily broken.
Yesterday I thought about the fragility of life as weather warnings abounded on my Facebook feed, and sadly reports of numerous accidents. Our life is fragile.
I see this often, in my work. Life is fragile… yet incredibly beautiful. I have visited a number of dear elderly folk lately, beautiful souls that encourage me, and their prayer is inevitably that they be ushered into their heavenly home. Their bodies, fragile, and breaking down.
This morning we read a devotion by Henri Nouwen which encouraged me. It was about patience, something I don’t easily pray for because I’m afraid of the lessons I need to get there! But his thought was that the gifts are in the waiting. When we are impatient, waiting for the next thing, we are not content with the place we are in.
This is a lesson that strikes home for me, again and again. In the winter, both physically and metaphorically, we long for spring, we long for relief. To be content in the now, in the fragility of life, to see beauty even in brokenness: these things bring contentment and joy.
I love that saying: “Life is fragile, handle with prayer”. (Harold B. Lee) Good advice.
