The Beauty of Winter

In winters past, I remember dreading the gloomy grey days filled with cold, snow, and slush. Winter seemed never ending and I remember longing for spring and warmer days. I don't know quite what has hit me, but the more I tune in with nature the more I love the natural changing seasons. I have always found snow beautiful and now I am appriciating even the gloomiest of winter days.

There is such a stillness to winter. A calm. If you listen closely you can hear her whispering her beauty and surrounding you with it. Be still, breathe, anticipate. Breathe in winters beauty while she's still here. Bundle up and go outside. Search her out, ask her to consume you and show you the beauty she has to offer you. Winter is refreshing.

One of my favorite parts of winter is going outside with my boys and exploring. Their little noses get all red, hands cold as ice. They trudge along in their snow boots picking up sticks or leaves along the way. Exploring anything they can find sticking out of the snow.

And then when we feel we can't bear to stay outside a moments longer we retreat to our warm house and the boys snuggle in for a nursing. Their icy little hands and cold little noses pressed against me. And I smile, and I know I will miss this. Just like winter turns to spring and spring turns to summer, my babies are no longer babies. I have a toddler and a preschooler, and when I blink they will be 15 and 17 and I will think back fondly of all the beautiful winters I shared with them. All the winters where it took us 30 minutes to leave the house only to come back in 10 minutes later because they got too cold. All the winters where they begged to get outside only to want to lay in the snow and make snow angels until they were frozen. All of the winters we snuggled up together to keep warm and sip on hot cocoa together.  Too soon winter will be over for this year, and the boys will be all grown up.

Try to see the beauty in everything, time is so precious and it moves so fast. Instead of wishing for spring, appreciate the season you are in right now. Find the beauty. There is always beauty.