It is so easy to decorate with pine cones for the Christmas holidays. Recently, I had a friend who planned on making a centerpiece using pine cones. She spray painted them white and waited for them to dry. However, with the hustle and bustle of the season, the pine cones lay forgotten. After several days in the rain, she remembered them. As she brought them inside, she noticed something looked different about them other than the white paint. They had closed. She had thought it was because they were wet. But that is not why they had closed.
Pine cones open and close depending on the weather. They can 'sense' climate changes and close to protect the seed within. When a storm approaches, their scales close so that no matter how terrible the storm, the life within survives. No matter how deep the snow or how the wind may blow, the seed within is safe, ready to bring forth new life at just the right time. The seed is always safe as long as the pine cone protects us.
It is the same with our lives. Those that give their life to Christ have a hope in Him that cannot be taken away no matter what storms in life we face. We know this body is only temporal, but our soul cannot be touched. Though life may become so stormy we think we will perish, Jesus is always there if we will but be still and trust in Him. He never fails us even though we fail Him many, many times.
When the storms of life threaten your peace, remember the pine cone. God designed the evergreen to be a symbol of hope in the dead of winter. So, too, do we have a hope in the midst of trials. “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:37-39, NKJV).