It wasn’t until I saw myself as the tree, clinging to the side of the cliff, hanging over a raging sea, that I was finally – finally able to see myself as beautiful.

I saw the tree, twisted and contorted by storms blowing in from a turbulent ocean. Rain, pounding the sandy soil, washing away its only source of life… or so I thought.

Dark days turn repeatedly into black nights of threatening clouds and stormy chaos, determined to wash the tree off the precipice and into the icy and crashing waters, year after year.

The tree, contorted and twisted by harsh weather, would otherwise stand tall and straight if not continually buffeted. It’s branches symmetrical in form and covered with graceful needles.

But the tree, perhaps not beautiful in the eyes of some, had grown strong. Its roots exposed to the chilling elements, had dug ever deeper into the earth, into the rock, drawing its sustenance from what seemed impossible. Its branches nearly naked, stripped of all but tufts of stubborn needles.

The tree had learned not to resist where it had been sown. Instead, it welcomed the pelting sand and the stinging rain and the bleaching rays of the sun when they came. I saw it as beautiful.

The tree gave in to nature’s artist’s hands and in so doing did not die but thrives.