Trees lose everything and yet they still stand tall and wait for a new season to thrive.

Do you feel like you have lost it all? Are you tired of survival mode?

The year is coming to an end – for some of us there is a lot to celebrate and be excited about and yet for some of us, it has been a year from hell – literally. Whatever the case is, we have all lost and gained something this year.

I carry on a practice I learned from my friend that is, to keep a thankfulness jar which is full to capacity this year – that is a sign that lots of good things have come my way. God has been really good to me.

While that is true, I have also suffered immeasurable pain, unexplainable loss and immense rejection . Thinking about this particular unfortunate part of my 2019, I was drawn to think about trees.

You see, the life cycle of every tree is synonymous with life and death, shedding and sprouting. Trees lose everything and yet they still stand tall and wait for a new season to thrive . I watch the mango tree in my compound lose leaves and sometimes fruit almost on a daily. I do not think that my mango tree is worried that with all the shedding, life is over for it because it has mastered the truth in the fact that while it sheds, the leaves are creating another ecosystem to ferterlize the roots and create life for it. It’s a cycle that is somehow interconnected and is feeding into the life span of the tree .

This is how I am choosing to walk into a new year, with the understanding that the pain, the joy and celebration, and the uncomfortable situations that are constantly thrown at me are the way they come because God knows I can handle it and He is strengthening my ecosystem to support me fully.

I have come to appreciate that life is full of so many surprises, both good and bad ones. It’s how we position ourselves to take these on that makes us who we are. Small things can’t faze us when we choose to focus on the big picture.