Seasons {Winter}
/Winter is coming. The seasons are changing. The leaves are falling from the trees. The morning air is super crisp and my kids can see their "snow breath" when they take the dog out before sunrise. Jackets and sweaters are finding their ways out of the backs of closets. There's not enough coffee or cute boots in the world that will make me fall in love with this season. The days are shorter and the nights are longer.
A shift is taking place.
I've been in a hard season for quite some time. Longer than I'd like. And in some ways given recent events, it seems like winter will be here a bit longer. I hate that. My soul aches because of the glaring gaps between what is "not yet". There's a lot that feels dark and empty and not as it should be.
And yet, I've been around long enough to know that something supernatural happens in winter. Seeds germinate. The earth centers down and rests. Roots grow deeper. The barrenness provides a new lens for seeing and embracing. And all that appears dead is purely preparing to burst into life in a new way. My friend, Jarrett, wrote a great book and in it he describes winter in a way that I so desperately need to hold on to. Perhaps it will speak to your soul today, as well...
“We all encounter our ‘winter’ seasons - a season of death or loss or shattered dreams. A season of dreams deferred. A season of calling out to God, only to receive the icy silence of winter. A season when it seems as though all is lost and the story is over. Yet, if you’ve walked through one of those seasons in the past, the simple act of you reading these words now is proof that not all was lost. My hunch is that there are things that there are things that have grown in and out of you because of that dark and dormant season. Life has somehow come from that death...as it always does.
If you happen to be in one of those seasons right now, then with all the grace and and as much strength as you can muster...take heart. It may seem cold and dark and lonely. That’s only because it is. Winter comes to all of us, and it needs to stay as long as it needs to stay. But just because all may seem lost or not as it should be, or not as you would like it on the surface, that doesn’t mean that God is not at work behind the scenes and beneath the soil. He is working something out in you that, honestly, can’t be worked out in any other season.”
Take heart, friends. All is not as it appears to be. Something else is going on that one day we will see. Keep doing the work that needs to be done. Resist the urge to abdicate your responsibility because of the darkness and cold and hard. Determine who you will be in this season so the one to come will bear the fruit you desperately desire now.
With you.
