Midwinter Graces

Midwinter does things to my sense of hope.

The grass in my yard is dead, the earth by the sidewalk turned to cold sludge-- something the ground spits at my boots out of sheer malice. The oak tree across the road is nothing but branch-bones. Even the noon sunlight is tentative and half-hearted.

Of course I fight back-- I put soup in the crockpot and wear fuzzy socks. I dig out extra blankets and light nutmeg candles. I play music that puts dancing in my feet while I wash the dishes, but at the corner of the kitchen window, bruise-black winter night creeps up pane by pane. Something in my soul rolls over to hibernate, to burrow deep and forget things like wonder and joy and beauty that seem more fitted to spring.

Maybe I'm not the only one. Maybe you're tired too.

What I want to say to both of us is don't go numb. Don't sleep it off. Watch the sky darken and wait. Winter, with its slush and mud and cold fingers and dampened hearts, is really a promise. You, and I, and creation itself are living out this dead time, knowing that beneath the ugly ground are green and growing things. When He calls the earth to awaken, the sun on our windows will shine strong. Rain will soften and warm even the dirt in my yard. The azaleas by the bedroom window will bloom.

It works the same way when it's midwinter in your soul.

Sometimes you look at your heart and see a dirty field, icy and hard from whatever freeze has entered your life. Or you see a hateful muck of sin that clings thick and soils everything. Even His light seems to fall slant on your soul, thin against swift-falling darkness. You chase grace by whatever means you can. You gather to worship Him. You warm yourself over His Word like hands over fire. You pray for thaw. You may even sing, sending up praise like a tiny sparrow headlong into winter wind, but the cold spell stretches on and the ache won't quit. Like wind howling around house corners, a bleak and insistent voice tells you to just stop seeking Him. Curl up and forget. Make do.

Don't.

You are His. He won't leave you frozen and mired.

Yes, in sovereign love He sends His own into winter, but He plants His fruit even in the seeming dead times. Some seeds need the cold before they can germinate. Some works of grace come alive only after barrenness has driven us to yet another end of ourselves. To an even fuller understanding that He is our new beginning. He is our spring. When he calls our souls to be green and growing again, we will be amazed at what He has planted, what He was working in us all the time.

Our hearts will soften. Our souls will warm. We will lift up our heads in joy and bloom.