Beauty in structure

Liver Life Walk Oct 24 2009
Originally uploaded by Jean 1.

Recently, during a visit with my Mother-in-law, while we were talking about life and change she remarked "You know, as I was driving home it struck me that there can be great beauty in dying. I was thinking about all the beautiful trees this time of year, all the colors and variations, and then I realized that these leaves are only this color because they are in the process of dying." I agreed and we went on but the remark stayed with me. In the life of a Christian one goes through varying degrees of death...death to self, to pride, to agendas, to sin and so on. Often, within this death process we find it scary and sometimes even fight against the change.
The day after the conversation I came upon the tree in the photograph. I found it devoid of all its leaves already in a park surrounded completely by trees in full autumn regalia however this tree, bare of all its splendor, held for me the greatest beauty. Without is covering one can see the intricate weaving and workings of what has taken years to develop. The limbs, both great and small, had just recently been covered with multitudes of leaves but now, it is the structure, the core of what held up the leaves that contains the full beauty, something that has been a work in progress for more years than the temporary covering of leaves it recently held and, in the spring, will hold again.
Yes, death can create beauty, and more often, reveal the even greater beauty of what has been happening underneath it all.