Fall and Winter

Fall: All the trees sway in the breeze, the leaves turning from green to brown, orange, red, and purple as the xylem and phloem are stopped from flowing into them, starving the chlorophyll making cells revealing the other plastids hidden beneath. Even though the grey and rain conquer the overcast skies, spirits are bright. Holidays are on the way: Harvest and Thanksgivings. It is the season to remember our blessings, the seasons to be content, the season to work hard, bring in the good harvest of our crops and our hearts. Colors are bright but few, revealing the truth underneath that bright green or purple in the summer. The season of thankfulness and receiving has come, and a season of giving and new beginnings to follow.

Winter: Most trees are bare, the branches shuddering in the cold, the large pine trees and evergreens stand tall and green, as though promising for spring and summer to return. Spring will return, even if every tree, every heart, forgets its existence, its promise. Many stay focused on their work, not wishing to notice the dead, dead world around them, almost as real as the death in their hearts. But others prepared themselves in the harvest for the frost, and now looked eagerly for signs of the Spring that they know will come. Christmas comes, and they remember its meaning, its promise, while other just use it to distract them from the biting cold winter. When snow falls, they remember the hope, the purity, the forgiveness granted to their hearts by Jesus. And as the new year comes, they remember the new birth, the new life, the new beginnings given to them by Jesus, for, even if their mind forgets, their heart will always remember, will always know of the hope coming, just as truly as every tree, dead they may look, remember in their xylems, remember in their phloems, that spring will come, as surely as the evergreens, as surely as the pine trees are green, as sure as they promise, because Spring will always come to those who remember. Some trees forget, and they wither and die, not to be seen alive again, but most look to the evergreen and hold the hope. Trees are more trusting than people, for those that last the winter are many, but people who last the winter in their hearts are few.