What to Remember in the Dead of Winter

A few days ago, I took a walk in the wooded area behind our home. I went to check on the daffodils whose buds started peeking out due to a warm spell in late winter. I’m not really sure why I checked on them, as there was little help I could provide them against the impending cold.

However, while on my walk, I noticed that my Lenten Rose bush was in full bloom. The Lenten Rose is a small shrub that can’t really figure out its place in the rhythm of things.

I relate to it.

It almost dies back in the winter, but not fully. While its green leaves are muted, they never quite submit to brown. It’s not particularly flashy and isn’t chosen all that much for yards and landscapes. If plants could tease one another, I think it would be the butt of the plant jokesters.

And while it’s often seen as nothing special, every year it brings tears to my eyes. I have two of them in my yard.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

In late winter (or early spring), long before the daffodils or crocuses peek from the ground, blooms quietly emerge from this little plant. While other plants show off their blossoms, the Lenten Rose is demure about it. Bowing its head, the blooms gently fold themselves against its leafy foliage.

Sometimes one has to look for it, as it tries to conceal its several shades of purple and pink against a white background.
Truth be told, the winter is always hard for me.

I don’t do well with the sun going down early, dark cloudy days, and the lack of green. It’s also the season of my darkest hours in years past, and the reminder of it all sometimes settles in like a heavy fog. As the winter progresses, something in me always needs a sign, begs for a sign, of hope.

And then one morning, near the beginning of the season of Lent, this dear little shrub greeted me, full of blossoms, showing up several weeks earlier than usual.

It declared, “Spring will come.”

“That which has descended into the earth will emerge again.”

And within a month, the Lenten Rose will be proved right. I think that’s why Easter is my favorite day of the year. The signs of hope will be proven true. Lent will be over, the stone will be rolled away, and as Wendell Berry says, I can “practice resurrection.”

Whether you live in a temperate climate or one that has seasons, all of us have a winter—a time where things feel dormant, dark, and little hope can be found. As you trudge through the barren landscape, as you walk through this season of Lent, let this faithful flowering shrub whisper its story to you saying, “Winter will not win.”

What to Remember in the Dead of Winter is a post from: Storyline Blog