'...sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.'
it's a beautifully unassuming line from the first paragraph of chapter nine of jane eyre about loss and time passing and the grave of a dear friend. i've loved those words since i was eleven years old. i'm not sure what made me love them then, and even now, i have not yet completely established why they affect me.
for any human being though, it is easy to dabble in the currency of half-truths and lies. i tell myself the things i want to hear more than the things i ought to or the things i know are true. and so often confronting reality is traded in for the musings of wandering minds and minute-long attention spans. our mental ascensions and the giving of our hearts are disconnected and in the realms of emotion and reckoning so much is left unsaid or over thought.
there are mountains everywhere molehills should be.
because we are sinful, we have our own brown beds upon which we are waiting for greenness to grow.
because i am sinful, there are scars on my heart from wounds that never really were.
but brontë's words are a delicate reminder of the fact that in just letting the days go by, something hauntingly beyond my control happens; greenness grows.
through long nights, jesus is traversing my brown beds and leaving brighter steps of His traces each morning.
