Seasons

I've inhabited our third rock from the sun for nearly 40 years.

This winter has been long and ugly. With no snow, save the surprise blizzard in October, to coat the earth with a gorgeous blanket of white, the cold, brown days have made me both long for spring and wish I could start winter over again. Give me warmth and new green if I'm not going to get the chill and excitement of snow and ice! Although there's always the possibility of it, I'll probably have to wait another year for the type of snow I seek.

I've learned that life comes in seasons too. Every week I hang out and laugh with energized teenaged girls and twenty-something young women who have hopes, dreams of the way things should be and a full life ahead of them. Daily, I watch my 75 year old mother-in-love patter about the house, misplacing memories of the full life she has led; desperately missing the man she lived them with. Those in my charge keep me keenly aware of the seasons in my humanity.

I am firmly sandwiched between life and death. I remember the aspirations and joy that awaited when my hair was still chestnut brown - I see it now in my own sons who are almost grown men. With salt and pepper tresses and a forward eye on the next 20 years, I see the outline of a path that will no doubt bring great joy and bitter weeping in their seasons.

I'm sure the last 40 days of Christ's life on Earth were filled with both the warming excitement that can only come from God fulfilling his promises, and yet, the harsh reality that would be the coldness of The Cross. Despite how cold of our days may feel, we need to be reminded that we live in the warmth of The Cross.

The Afterglow.

We are daily bathed in grace that only flows from the sunshine of the throne room of God. With seasons spent in cold loneliness and those of joy filled fullness, I can still say that the resurrected Christ is real, alive and ever present. He breathes warmth into my life today the same way he smiled on me in the summer sunshine 30-odd years ago. And so it should be.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: time to be born, and a time to die... Ecclesiastes 3:1-8