Lessons from Nature

We notice the sunshine after it has been gone all night or after a storm has hidden its beauty for too long.  Sunshine is what we take for granted every morning that it appears.  Yet, it is on a cloudy day when we should remind ourselves of its beauty.  It is when it is darkest in the middle of the night, when sleep will not come at two in the morning, when the mind races with what ifs, that is when the sun should be brightest in our minds.

The wondrous tulip that buds, opens on a clear spring day, it can only grow out of the homely brown soil.  It has been buried underground waiting in the cold harsh winter unafraid.  There was always a plan.  We forgot.  We planted them in neat rows back in the cool autumn evening when the chill was barely upon us and the leaves were turning their tender shades.  Then we just left the bulbs to moulder underneath sod and decay.  Even so, they went about their work, they grew perfectly.  They shot up and surprised us when we needed it most, when we thought we could not take it one more day.  And then they were there, heads bobbing, rows and rows of brightly dressed beauty.

Then there is the deer, hesitant in the meadow, peeking its head through the dense foliage only when the coast is clear, when the hunter is gone, when the threat is abated.  All winter it has been hiding, gathering what little it could find in the somnolent earth.  It has been biding its time for the awakening.  Along with the hardships of nature, the deer contends with beast and man, two predators that hunt him for food and sport.  The ones that survive, come out tentatively, warily.  They have learned to beware of the danger.  Even in their meekness they must stride out into the fields, and it is almost majestic to see their entrance onto the newly sprouted earth.

Nature offers us such wonderful life lessons.  It shows us the way to heal our hearts, to mend our brokenness, to show ourselves after all is lost.  Life can be full of ugliness and brokenness and nothing in this world is more real or honest than to acknowledge this.  But what is also true and real is that there is healing and light, there is newness, there is a beginning and a future.