Staci Kennelly is mom, teacher, mentor and housemaid to three wonderful and amazing girls. In her spare time she enjoys playing hooky with her husband and children, cooking yummy food, exploring new cities, collecting vintage cameras and photographing all of it. My Japanese Magnolia tree is one of my favorite plants in our yard. It is a big beautiful tree that is green all of spring and summer. Come autumn, all of it’s leaves slowly loose their color and fall. Then the tree sits there for weeks, bare. The whole thing is this great gray stick. Each year, this is when my heart seems to fall in love with my tree more. Not because of what it is, but because I know what is coming. You see, in the middle of winter, when all of my garden is sleeping and waiting for spring, my Japanese Magnolia blooms. It doesn’t have a single leaf on it… only pretty pink flowers. This giant gray stick is suddenly a bursting with life!
©2012 Staci KennellyThe first year we lived in this home, I thought I had killed it. It was just so bare. But now, I know that when it is bare and seems to have nothing else, that is when I am to be reminded of the years past. That is when I reach back and remember the Januarys filled with pink flowers.
©2012 Staci Kennelly
Hope is like that. We do not need to be reminded of hope when our soul is in a spring season. Spring is full of new life. Summer is filled with freedom and warmth. We seem to carry summer’s warmth into autumn. But when winter comes, sometimes, its cold reaches so deep into our soul that we forget what warmth and freedom felt like. This is when we need to remind ourselves of years past. We can remind ourselves of our own beauty and our own strength. We can remind ourselves of the times we fell, only to rise up again. Winter seasons in my life no longer hold fear or worry. They are a time of great hope. For I know, right there in the middle of winter, I will bloom.
©2012 Staci Kennelly
