The Tree in Winter

The winter, barren branch, firmly rooted, standing stark against a scarlet-stained sky has long been one of my favorite metaphors for life. I have spent close to 50 winters contemplating its beauty and message. In every testing period of my life, its sermon of hope becomes my winter song of making blueprints for spring and seeking the deliverance and promise of warmer days.

In all seasons, Psalm 1 is a beloved song of hope and wisdom but especially in winter. It speaks of the man who meditates on God both night and day.

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers (Psalm 1:3).

Trees classified as deciduous are all about the cycle of annual seasons. They sprout verdant sprigs of life and tender leaf in early springtime. They bear blossoms and then fruit in summer. In autumn, green leaves burnish and turn to scarlet and gold before they dry to brown and drop to decay in the earth below. Then the winter tree is bleak and barren, stripped bare, but certainly not dead. Hidden from human eyes with its roots resting in the cold, dark soil, it rejuvenates its self preparing again for fruitfulness.

Without fully understanding seasons, we mortals tend only to see that barrenness of the tree in winter or just the fruit of summer. How easily we lose sight of the full cycle and knowledge that the fruitful blooming arrives in season because of the perfect and glorious preparation that winter provides.

Personal Winter Seasons

Those gray and barren months of trials and really hard times are actually something holy. I reflect upon those holy winters — when I felt unseen by those that weren’t aware of my private suffering—or aware but distant. Unexplained infertility was a hard season. It came with a myriad of unproductive fertility testing, two painful miscarriages, and years of tears, prayer, and waiting. Here’s the deal, every birth is accompanied by waiting, pain, and joy in season. In the end, we adopted and participated in the most beautiful story of redemption for a little Guatemalan baby girl that God lent to us to raise. We practically forgot the pain over the years and have never looked back. We became huge advocates for adoption! A new chapter of fruitfulness sprang forth that continues to this day. Now our daughter and son-in-love are parents of two with another on the way!

In retrospect, my single years (I married at 32) definitely seemed like the barrenness of winter. Living in a couples’ world, singles can feel isolated. In my mind those were cloudy and lonely years. Now, though, I see them as some of the brightest and happiest because I traveled freely without the burden of family responsibility, lived in Israel for 2 & 1/2 years, learned a foreign language, Hebrew, and carried the gospel of good news to the Jew first as instructed in Roman’s 1:16. This period taught me that parts of life can be on hold and unproductive while other parts can be extremely fulfilling and fruitful.

Our 9 years on the mission field were dark days too because they were filled with hardships such as we had never experienced. and yet they became the most fulfilling and successful eternally. They were days of losses and gains, betrayals, and suffering, pioneering, and we wouldn’t trade them for anything now. Just to hear one Ukrainian Jewish person come up to Wayne and me and say, “Thank you for coming,” washed away all the heartache of stretching. Eventually the Bible schools we built extended into 14 nations and have become accredited university courses.

In these winter seasons of our suffering, God was strengthening and securing the roots of our trees to make us firm and able to endure the cold wind and storms of winter, to prepare us for the heavy laden branches of bearing fruit and fruit that remains.

I see now in the unfruitful seasons, I have fallen in love with Jesus more and became able to bear more responsibility and fruit. Sometimes I was unable to change the world because God needed to change me.

Four Tips for Cultivating Roots

If you are enduring a winter (maybe even a prolonged and especially bleak winter), here are some tools to help strengthen your roots.

1. Surrender to Winter

It is easy to spend most of your energy on plotting how to escape from what you are enduring. It is real! Just. Surrender. Seize it as needed rest and opportunity. It is painful. It will position you to receive all the change and good that God has for you. God IS good and does not withhold any good thing. Instead he gives grace and glory to endure (Psalm 84:11).

When Wayne and I embraced our infertility and decided to just wait and see what God was saying or what he had for us, someone unexpectedly called the church. That phone call led us to a lawyer, who did adoptions in Guatemala, and the rest of it is history – – beautiful history. A year later we brought home our beautiful 6 1/2 month old daughter, and named her and Julia Elizabeth. What a gift she was for us. And those years of waiting made it all the sweeter. We stopped fighting the pain of infertility, and started waiting on God with hope. We surrendered to God’s plan and way instead of ours. In time, God turned this around and brought beautiful fruit from our delay and heartbreak.

2. Cope Creatively

Find things to do that will cause you to fall in love with God anew. Barren seasons will be dry and joyless even hopeless at times. Delays and disappointments are opportunities to see God and his promises as fresh enlightenment to your time and space.

Find the healing power of nature. During the two-year pandemic period, daily walks to our local botanical gardens became our lifeline to joy and hope. My husband and I walked to and through the trees and flowers almost daily. We often stopped by a pond or fountain to hear the water. In those beautiful moments of rejuvenation, God whispered his love afresh. These nature walks and prayers grounded us when there was death and dying on our doorstep daily.

Journaling also has proven to strengthen roots of faith along with new ways to read the Bible. Engage in whatever gets you through the darkness. In that place you will find pools of healing and hope.

3. Continue to Cultivate Dreams

Sadly, American culture is centered on success according to hard work, increased finances, and relentless action. But winter is a season of rest and reflection. It is a gift in disguise. For it is in the gray barrenness that we cozy up to God, lean into his embrace with quiet hearts to hear of new plans for a new start. In that place we dream again about tomorrow. Don’t stop dreaming. Dormant dreams that have turned cold on the back burner are not dead dreams. Rekindle those longings. Write them down. He created you to be fruitful (John 15:8). Winter is a time to take those delays and desires to God in prayer. Winter is a time to cultivate your dreams to the max.

4. Cultivate Thankfulness

Learning to winter the winter can become an art. Some barrenness and suffering can last for years, and others can be profound yet short-lived. Sometimes, as strange as it seems, fruitfulness and barrenness can run on parallel tracks. This scripture has been precious to me in dark times.

“I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel” ( Isaiah 45:3).

In every season God has proven himself to be true and faithful. The Lord strengthened my roots in the dark of winter and indeed poured in me the glorious treasures of that season that are still producing fruit within me and others in my family and Christian community. None of this would have come to pass without enduring and embracing the season of winter.