Healing Well of Miriam

ב״ה

19 Shevat 5770

I came to Oklahoma to see my parents. When I made my reservation I had no idea I would be arriving for the worst ice storm in the last hundred years. Power was out in large areas, leaving whole towns in the dark for about a week. Some places still do not have power, and it is being predicted that it may take months for some areas to be completely repaired. In addition, there were water shortages, as the pumps for the water tanks were without power to refill them.

Even after the roads were clear enough to drive on, I saw the damage to trees encased in ice. These trees could not bear the weight and broke. Huge limbs and smaller branches littered roads and walkways. Tall majestic trees bowed their limbs to the ground, as though grieving under the frozen weight. Some will recover and survive, but many were damaged far too badly, deeply cracking and splitting at the trunk. The sadness of the scene struck me, like the “snow queen’s ice shard” piercing my own heart. Winter is a time of dormant sleep for trees, but these will awaken in spring sorely injured.

The prayer of my heart went Isaiah 55:12:

For in gladness shall you go out and in peace shall you arrive, the mountains and the hills will bread out in glad song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap hands.

Later I talked with a friend who told me about her own grief about a tree that was damaged in her yard during a previous storm. May we all come to feel for the sentient creatures of Hashem’s Creation–of our home–that they will experience the promised joy and gladness of Redemption, restoration of the state of Creation.

Sason v’simcha,
Miriam Leah