My husband and I took a walk through the woods. As we travelled deeper the snow fell harder, eventually turning into ice pellets that stung our faces and clung to our coats. The world around us was beautiful, but also a little cruel.
Then my husband, ever the observer, stopped and pointed out a spider in the picture. He marvelled at it, while I, a little perturbed by the wet and cold, took a moment longer to be impressed. He had me take a picture, and seeing that tiny fleck on my screen, barely recognizable in the middle of all that snow, crawling through a path wide enough that it probably had at least four feet to travel in either direction – which to me, would have been kilometres – I was amazed.
When I got home and looked at the picture again, zoomed in so I could see the spider more clearly, my amazement turned to humility. That spider was the embodiment of resilience. Why it was in the path, I’ll never know. Did it survive? Probably, because this wasn’t the first snow and there it was, alive, battl
ing through a snowfall that to me was uncomfortable, and to it, must have been a raging storm. It pressed on, it had a destination in mind, and was resolved to reach it.
Resilience.
It makes me think, how often have I felt like the path ahead of me was too hard? How many times have I let myself get discouraged because the future seems too undetermined and I fear failure? Too many.
But now when it seems overwhelming to trudge along the path I’ve set out upon I will think – if a spider can do it …
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Makes me think about the mosquito that I saw last winter in our driveway. I had gone to pick up mail at our mailbox, dressed up in winter coat, hat, boots, etc. and on my way back there was this mosquito moving along in the frozen snow and ice. Seems unbelievable that they would not just freeze.
Yeah, it’s incredible!