Hope and joy in unexpected places

I know quoting texts can be dull but there is much here that I want to share:

"When shall I see a sign that it will ever be otherwise?"

"Turn your face from the green world, and look where all seems barren and cold!" said Gandolf.

Then Aragorn turned, and there was a stony slope behind him running down from the skirts of the snow; and as he looked he was aware that alone there in the waste a growing thing stood. And he climbed to it, and saw that out of the very edge of the snow there sprang a sapling tree no more than three foot high. Already it had put forth young leaves long and shapely, dark above and silver beneath, and upon its slender crown it bore one small cluster of flowers whose white petals shone like the sunlit snow.

--Tolkien, Return of the King