I Welcome the Wind

One of my favorite photos of Jack was taken on an ordinary day that somehow became sacred in hindsight.

He’s standing still, facing straight into the wind. His eyes are closed, his soft ears pushed back, his coat rippling like prairie grass in a storm. There’s no tension in him—no resistance. Just presence. Just trust. As if the wind itself were speaking, and he had decided to listen.

 
 

If you’ve ever loved a dog, you’ve seen this before. They don’t fight the wind. They lean into it. They receive it. Jack passed away in 2018, but that image of him—steady, surrendered, unafraid—has never left me.

A few weeks ago, during a quiet morning devotional, I came across a simple phrase: “I welcome the wind.”

It stopped me.

The reflection compared wind to the life of a fire. Add wind to a small candle, and it flickers, struggles… sometimes goes out. But add wind to an open, steady fire, and something entirely different happens—it roars. It grows. It becomes more itself.

The wind doesn’t change its nature. It reveals the strength of the fire it meets. And that’s when it settled into my spirit:

What if the “wind” in my life—the hard things, the uncertain things, the stretching, uncomfortable seasons—aren’t here to extinguish me? What if they’re here to feed the fire?

Lately, life has felt… windy.

Medical concerns. Personal challenges. Work situations that stretch patience and clarity. The kind of season that can leave you feeling like that small candle—flickering, vulnerable, unsure if you’ll hold your flame. But I keep coming back to that phrase— I welcome the wind.

Not because it’s easy. Not because I enjoy the discomfort. But because I’m choosing to believe that my fire is not fragile. That the Spirit within me is not so easily extinguished.

In faith, wind becomes something different. It becomes refinement. It becomes strengthening. It becomes the very thing that burnishes us—polishing, shaping, deepening us into who we’re meant to be.

The wind tests the flame, yes. But it also teaches it how to rise.

And I think about Jack. Standing there, eyes closed, completely at peace in something he could not control. He didn’t brace himself against the wind. He didn’t turn away. He faced it—fully. There’s something deeply spiritual in that kind of posture. A quiet kind of courage.

So here I am, in a season where the winds are real and sometimes strong, choosing a different response. Not resistance. Not fear. But openness. I welcome the wind. Because I am not a candle meant to be hidden from every gust. I am a fire being tended. And maybe you are too.

So I’ll leave you with this question, the one I’ve been asking myself: Do you welcome the wind? Or are you still trying to avoid it?

Maybe today isn’t about having a bigger fire. Maybe it’s about trusting that the wind has something to teach you— something to grow in you something to strengthen in you. And maybe, just maybe… it’s safe to close your eyes, lean in, and listen.