skeleton trees

A little reminder for me this week as I spent the last several overcast days pining for sunshine...

"To those with ears to hear and eyes to see, there will be very great release from unbearable burdens in the language of the autumn trees, for example, when they dress most gloriously in preparation for death..."

"Winter follows, when the snow closes everything in frozen silence. The trees then are skeletons, but wonders are being performed under the surface of things."

"Spring comes, and the hidden wonders burst out all at once - tiny shoots, swelling buds, touches of green and red where all seemed hopeless the day before."

"The yellow blossom of the gorge springing straight out of last year's thorn." 

"Plain lessons for us, if we'll open our eyes."

"If the leaves had not let go to fall and wither, if the tree had not consented to be a skeleton for many months, there would be no new life rising, no bud, no flower, no fruit, no seed, no new regeneration.

 ~Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity, pg 76