Loving What Leaves
a devotional for winter
Advent Is Underway, But The Journey Is Ongoing!
If you’re looking for a poetic, daily journey through Advent—steeped in both biblical truth and a passionate love for the natural world—I invite you to explore my devotional, Pilgrim God, now available on Amazon!
This daily Advent companion is $2.99 to purchase outright as an ebook, or Kindle Unlimited users can download and read for free.
I hope it blesses your Advent season!
the first snow of winter falls tasked with slowing us down; adding hush to our noise, brightening our skies, teaching us that if we want to see more clearly sometimes it's best to hide the details.
Over the weekend, on what started out as a soggy December Saturday, we had an unexpected visitor: snow.Â
Ah, snow! Here in the Pacific Northwest, mere miles from fickle Puget Sound, snow is never a given, and it never sticks around for long. Infamously difficult to forecast here, whenever there’s a hint of snow on the weather app or TV news, people tend to go a little wild. They raid the stores to stock up on bread and milk, just in case it’s a doozy (though often, it isn’t). On this area’s hills, and thanks to our unique climate patterns of melt and re-freeze, creating slick sheets of ice under the snow, the fluffy stuff isn’t always welcome. The romance of snow wears off quick when you’re pinballing down a steep Seattle hill in a car that won’t stop.Â
But oh, how the child in my heart sings when we have snow! I can’t help it. It makes me giddy.Â
On Saturday, I watched the rain slip from droplets to flakes, gradually and then all at once, and start to stick. It snowed steadily for a few hours, just enough to enjoy (and let the dog tumble around in), before—late in the afternoon—the rain came back and started the process of wiping the slate clean.Â
By the next morning, it was gone. Like it never was.Â
Since we’ve moved here, we have had a few honest-to-goodness region-defying winter storms after which the snow has lasted for ages, sticking around for us to play in for a week or more. These are uncommon, though. Saturday’s snow reminded me of the snows of my childhood, a nostalgic transience of beauty. How it appears, and you run outside to enjoy it while you can before tromping back in for cocoa, warming your frozen fingers with the mug, cheeks pink. Then, the next morning, you wake up and the snow has vanished like it never happened. Like it was all a dream.
There’s a grief in that, I suppose, but also a goodness. It is good to love a thing—a season, a person, a place—while it is here, while we have it. So quickly we forget.Â
Sometimes the love for a temporary thing gives us a glimpse of an eternal truth, a Now and Not-Yet love that we can feel within us, a gracious pull that we can’t ignore. It is in-built, an echo of a deeper truth, a sacred mystery. Someday we’ll love completely and forever, without saying goodbye, without waking up. Someday.Â
But for now, we love things that leave.
And yes—and yes!—it is good and right and beautiful to do so.Â
Discussion Question
Loving the temporary, finite things (or people, or places, or seasons) can often teach us an incredible amount about the love of God.
Can you think of an example of this in your own life?
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It reminds me of watching my own children grow. I love every stage, and mourn when it passes. When my newborn starts to crawl, when my toddler starts to talk, when my four-year-old doesn't need to hold my hand, when my nine-year-old stops asking me to carry him. I'm grateful they are growing; each new stage is exciting and fun for different reasons than the one that came before. But why did it all have to go so fast? I love to think about God in His parental capacity. I go through stages. I crawl and stumble and babble and rebel. And I learn, I change, I grow. And I know He's glad for that growth. But I'm quite sure He also loved everything that came before, too. What I see as weakness or failure, maybe He sees as a toddler learning to run. He doesn't roll His eyes and throw up His hands when I fall down. He shouts "It's okay! You've got this! Get up! Here I am, come to me!" and holds His arms open wide, glad that I still come to Him for hugs.
Nice article, S.E..!
This is on my list of topics to write about someday but, for me, having reached a certain age where excitement is harder to kindle and there is a more somber view of the current human circumstance, I have found myself really enjoying watching my dogs play together, reminding me of how my brother and I and our friends would play when we were children. We would run, wrestle, chase, and compete until we dropped from exhaustion and then we were right back at it. I miss the pure unadulterated fun that is exhibited in my playful pets.
The other thing that always brings a smile to my face and thankful prayer to my heart, is the laughter of little children. Hearing the neighborhood children, in all of their youthful innocence and exuberance from the solitude of my backyard always makes me lose myself in just a few minutes of simple happiness and gratitude. It also keeps me going until I see my grandchildren again and those are the really special times!