Winter Sunrises

So there is one thing that I’ve loved from the earliest days of this winter. I know this as fact, because I wrote it about it in my spiral on October 17^th, long before I knew what I was in for this winter. The thing I’ve loved this entire winter is that in this season I can see the sunset from my dining room every morning. During the other seasons of the year I can’t really see it because there is too much foliage in the way and also because it comes at an unspeakably early hour during the summer. I love the leaves and I miss how promising and lush and bright they are in the spring. I love how the summer breeze blows them around so they look like shiny green sequins. I love how resilient and bold and beautiful they are in autumn. But even though all that is true, I love when they fall in the winter because I can see everything so clearly. Because in winter, when my heart inevitably breaks a little saying goodbye to the colors, my view becomes clear and I experience the best sunrises. I know that it’s only because of the desolate barren of winter that I appreciate the sunrise so much. When the trees have full branches of leaves for my eyes to feast on, I don’t even look for the sunrise. Yet, even the most gorgeous trees cannot compare to the morning fire ablaze in the sky.

I need that fire burning low in the sky floating just above the ice. I need the reminder that even in the most bitter seasons there is beauty, even if I can only see it through one window. And surely if such radiance can show its face on the worst days, then how much more can I find joy in the day-in an day-out annoyances. Surely I can get past the bulky coats and the constant losing of mittens and the tantrums thrown because “No, you can’t walk on the ice by yourself,” and the cabin fever and salt stains everywhere. If God can evoke such paradise in the sky when it feels like the clouds themselves might be frozen, then I think I can endure the herding of children to be loaded into the car. (Seriously, someone should do an experiment. Which is harder, herding kittens or toddlers?) I’m so thankful for the sunrise on winter mornings. I’m so smitten with the myriad of colors in the sky when everything else has been stripped of its shade.