In Your Season, Remember the Lord

I’ve mentioned before that my favorite tree in Aztec is the magnificent one with great big branches right next to Park Avenue across from our church parking lot. She is so large and old that metal brace-like structures have been installed to keep her long elegant arms from collapsing. I long ago secretly named her “Grandma” because she is so beautiful and seems so ancient and wise as if she has seen and experienced so much life here in Aztec…I considered calling her “Grand Duchess” but that felt a little pretentious, and she humbly displays her beauty, so in my world she is Grandma.

Recently, as I drove out of our church parking lot, I noticed that Grandma has lost almost all of her leaves. I had watched her in spring develop such lovely full leaves, observed the bright shade of green filling her boughs in summer, the rich, deep yellow that covered her in autumn as she shivered a little in the cool of the mornings, and now…the barrenness of her dark branches and the dried crumpled leaves lying about her roots that speak of her winter.

It made me a little sad, but I realized that we too have seasons like this, seasons where we are stripped bare. Our once healthy branches now empty, we tremble a little in the cold and the wind. Perhaps we even feel a little part of us dying inside and may even feel that we might not make it. King David knew the feeling: “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is dry; my eyes fail while I wait for my God.” Psalm 69:1-3

But, in the midst of our winter, there is a way. Just like a tree in winter still has life in it, there is still life in you and me. Listen to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 77: “And I said, ‘This is my anguish; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the works of the LORD; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all Your work, and talk of Your deeds.”

In your season—winter or not—remember the Lord. Remember all that He’s done for you, His faithful works, His unfailing love…as you read His Word, remember who He is, think on it, meditate on it, and… as the Psalmist says, talk about it. Even in the midst of our winters, the Lord asks that we talk about Him, and who knows if maybe someone who does not know Him might see this and chose to lean on Him too because of what they saw and heard from you.