More of a “haircut”. Most branches that fell in the snowstorm were dead branches, destined to fall anyway. I know it’s easy for me to say that we can all learn a valuable lesson from this, especially because our branches landed in the yard instead of the roof, but I think we should all view this as a learning experience. We are more prepared for the next natural disaster, and our trees have lost a lot of dangerous dead weight. Can God be giving us “haircuts” of our own during times of struggle?

Charlie,
So good to hear from you…and thank you for your response.  I think you wrote your own “parable” with your image of the trees and “haircuts.”  God trimming away the not needed and dead parts of our lives which makes more space for the other parts of us to grow.    But, the process and experience of that “trimming” can be unsettling and uncertain.

After reading your reflections, what I found myself thinking about was this.  In some ways it is a matter of perspective, isn’t it?  Back to my “parable”…  After the “storm,” however we experience that in our lives, we can just stare at the dried up part of the stream…at what used to be…and either mourn that what once was no longer is, or be angry.  Or, we can lift our eyes and look around and maybe see the new channel that has been created.