Sometimes life throws you curve balls. For instance, a month with fewer days, a leaky water bottle, an incapacitated laptop, and travelling in a foreign country can sometimes heavily delay blog posting.
Without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen, the long-awaited words of Miss Grace Doolittle.
Miles to Go
by Grace Doolittle
Winter reminds me of a journey.
A melancholic season alternately distant, cold, and yet at
times comprised of warm and bright. There are the beautiful hidden jewels of a
snowy day, the diaphanous splendor of early morning sun as it kisses fresh
snow, illuminating the world far better as a pair than either ever could alone.
Of course there are the dark days too. Grey, cold, and uninviting, accentuated by the howling winds that make their whistling ways through every available crack and crevice, sinking into your bones. It’s days like this that magnify the struggles and press with invisible hands the blankets on my bed in a forceful persuasion to sleep, to suspend my efforts, to give in to complaint and up to life.
Of course there are the dark days too. Grey, cold, and uninviting, accentuated by the howling winds that make their whistling ways through every available crack and crevice, sinking into your bones. It’s days like this that magnify the struggles and press with invisible hands the blankets on my bed in a forceful persuasion to sleep, to suspend my efforts, to give in to complaint and up to life.
It’s days like this that I imagine Robert
Frost at his table, dripping words onto the page: and miles to go before I sleep…
Winter reminds me of promises, unbreakable and eternal—so
taken for granted that, like spring, we merely expect their eventual
fulfillment. Beautiful promises that take cold winter and dark valleys to
remind us how much we need their light; and when at last they do arrive they
seem a far lovelier thing for their absence.
I am thankful for the dark, cold nights of the soul, for the
barren, lonely places on my knees where I question the promises and feel
forsaken; they only test my faith and prove my trust, making the sunlit, grassy
slopes, the home with its faintly twinkling lights through frost-paned windows,
all the lovelier.
Let us gather then, in the midst of the cold and dark—you
who are wandering through deep snow and biting cold, fighting through the dark
night of the soul and yearning for home with miles yet to go. The promises are
still there, and truth is still true.
There is always grace for the long
journey home.
Model: Jenna Sliwinski
PC: Rachel Lynn Photography
