The Wisdom of Retrospect
This morning the sun rose slow and reluctant, casting a gold glow across the frozen lake. This is the small lake where we watch the winter sunrises as we don’t have many sunsets in the winter. The ice looked almost luminous—solid, quiet, holding the weight of winter with a kind of humble strength. I stood there watching the light shift across the surface, remembering how, just weeks ago, the water was restless and open. Now it holds a stillness that feels earned. Only in looking back can I see how gradually it happened: cold accumulating, wind shifting, night after night of deep freeze. What looked unchanged day to day was, in fact, becoming something entirely different.
It made me think about how clarity often works—how meaning rarely arrives in the moment, but reveals itself gently, in hindsight.
So much of last year makes more sense to me now than it did while I was living it. At the time, things felt like a lot with the buzz of so many shows in a row and later, working on the home renovations felt like downright chaos. I got news that put my studio in limbo. My rhythms shifted. Old ways of working dissolved before I knew what would replace them. It sometimes felt like walking through an obstacle course with a lot of darting and weaving—trusting each step without knowing where the path was leading. But looking back now, I can see the subtle through line of it all: a quiet guidance, a steadying hand, a purpose that only emerges once the dust has settled.
Faith often unfolds like that. Not as certainty, but as a willingness to keep walking without the clarity we wish we had. Only afterward do we notice how the pieces came together—how the pauses mattered, how the detours shaped us, how what felt like interruption was actually invitation. We often understand the path only after we’ve walked it. The same is true of my painting. I love the moment a collection breaks through my consciousness. God and my subconscious have long been at work, but I couldn’t yet see.
I’m learning to honor the timing of insight. To let meaning surface when it’s ready, not when I demand it. The earth doesn’t rush its revelations; why should we? Winter teaches that rest and understanding happen on their own schedules. The lake freezes an inch at a time. The orchard roots strengthen in silence. And our lives gather wisdom the same slow, faithful way.
Maybe you’re in a season where nothing seems coherent yet—where the events of your days feel disconnected, or the purpose behind them remains hidden. Maybe you’re walking without a map, trusting nudges that offer direction but not explanation. If so, you’re not lost. Some clarity can only come by living through the moment that will later make sense. Some wisdom reveals itself only when we turn around and see where we’ve been.
What recent part of your path is beginning to make sense only now?
May this late winter offer you the comfort of hindsight and the grace to trust what is still unfolding.
