Time to Thaw Out?

Seriously… what.a.long.winter!!  Is anyone else so ready for sunshine and blue skies and birds and tank tops and running shorts? This was my first winter up in the North- I mean tundra- no, I mean the North. 

What I’ve learned about winter through this season is that it can be very hard to appreciate. I found myself often through this season SO tired of putting on layers and layers just to be warm INSIDE much less outside. I longed every day just to see a glimpse of sunshine.. maybe it’s still there? Maybe there is hope of the spring coming once again? I longed to go outside for any bit of activity possible… just to move. I longed to not have to lotion my hands 16 times a day to keep them from cracking and bleeding. I longed to be able to feel my toes at all times. I longed to not have to warm my car up for 15 minutes before I could think about going anywhere. I longed to be outside, breathing in the fresh air without it burning my lungs. 

Ok enough complaining. The truth about winter in the North is, although SO cold and SO much snow, it is beautiful. It is utterly amazing to drive through the farmland and see feet of snow covering the landscape- the reminder that even creation needs a season of rest and that rest can be beautiful. Fields, that in their season, yield so much fruit are laid there- dormant. Covered and protected as if nature was saying, “It’s ok- it’s your time to rest. We’ll harvest again soon.” 

The winter isn’t the absence of promise… in fact it’s the opposite. It’s the incubator of promise. It’s this set apart time that is absolutely necessary for the longevity and effectiveness of the harvest seasons to come. 

What happens in the winter? … just a couple of things..

1. The pace changes. You just can’t be as active as you’d like to be. It forces many more movie nights or curled up on the couch- with a blanket- reading a good book- with a hot beverage kind of days. Physical rest and inactivity which (as much as I literally hate), is good and just like the field covered in snow- it allows a deep physical rest that leads to re-juvination and preparation for the next season of harvest. 

2. The scenery changes. You spend a lot more time inside rather than outside. The season of “inward” focus allows for deep spaces to be unwound in what would normally be seasons of external distractions and movements. This “unwinding” is like a season to weigh and measure the harvest before and to dream of the harvest to come. It’s a time to take honest inventory of life and dreams and wounds and direction. 

Winter is good and winter is necessary. 

And [PRAISE THE LORD] winter is a season. It does end. The birds are out now in Michigan and they’ve brought some sunshine and blue skies and temps above freezing. The bit of light that we’ve been craving is peaking through… reminding us that the season will change. The sun will shine again. It may not be today.. it may not be tomorrow.. but the sun WILL shine again. 

In the meantime may we be a people who say, “Thank you Lord for your beautiful seasons inside of us and out; thank you for tending to us as a field and may we not wish away our seasons before learning to receive their beautiful gifts.”

My winter season will continue a bit longer as the Lord “covers me in a blanket of snow.” But it will end.. and springtime will come again. I am believing Him for big things through this season and I am seeing glimpses of the dreams that He has given me- deep within- for the future. One day, maybe not to far from now, the land will thaw out and I will once again harvest.

Until then- I will receive the nourishment of winter… and try to appreciate it’s beauty:)

Walking on a frozen Lake Michigan! – crazy