Changing Seasons

Well the weather outside is frightful, and a fire would be delightful, but we don’t have a fireplace and it really hazardous to build fires in the middle of the living room.  I don’t think that’s exactly how the song goes, however I think you get the point.  Winter has arrived!!!  It’s been here for a few weeks but today it has truly made its presence known.   After listening to reports of extraordinarily low temperatures throughout the Mid-west, Buffalo has finally gotten in on the action.  The National Weather Service actually declared a BLIZZARD WARNING!!!   The last time that happened was 1993 so this is pretty exciting.

 

Seeing winter in all its glory, feeling wind that is cold enough to hit your bones, being blinded by millions of tiny snowflakes whirling together into a wall of white, and wanting nothing more than to stay in the warmth of home.  All of these things make me thankful that this is only a season.  Winter doesn’t last.  It will remain for a time. Then as it always does spring will come.  The snow that turns the world white will melt away. The green grass and leaves will return.  The icy wind will warm.  The season will end and another one will take its place.  I love that. 

 

I don’t think I would want to live in a place without season. I love knowing that change will come, and as hard and cold as winter can be I love that it makes me more thankful for spring.  That first day when you walk out of the house, smell the air and realize it smells like spring is easily one of my favorite days of the year.

 

It seems like life comes in seasons too.  Some of them are harder than others.  There are times when it can be difficult to see the good in life.  When you look around and only see pain and struggle and darkness.  I’ve had those times.  Seasons like that have sometimes made me wonder, what blessings could possibly come out of this trial?  Many times it felt like that season would never end, that there would never be that moment when I could smell life’s spring again.

 

Yet somehow spring always comes.  Often it hasn’t come in the way I expected, but it has always come.  Thankfully, seasons in life don’t change because I believe they will because my belief falters.  You know those days in deep winter when it’s hard to believe you’ll ever see a tulip bloom again?  Yet they do bloom even when we doubt.  Spring comes because God has promised it will.  Blessings come in my life not because I’ve had enough faith to make them come.  Not because I’ve earned them with my own perseverance in the hard times.  Not because of me at all.  Blessing come because God promised that “All things work together for good to those who love Him”, and I love Him because He first loved me.  Spring comes because He loves me.   

 

I don’t always remember the blessings of the snowflakes, I don’t think about how each of them is unique and beautiful when examined.  A lot of times all I remember is that they are cold.  Yet even on the coldest days I should remember that if I am not thankful for the winter I should be thankful that spring is coming, that spring always comes.  In life it is just as hard to be thankful in the midst of hard times that are so difficult to understand, but those seasons will change too and in the Lord even if I struggle to find the joy in trial I can find joy in the assurance that the trial will one day end.  Even if the season doesn’t end in the way I expect or at the time I expect spring always comes. Someday a spring will come that will last for eternity and yet be forever new.