Sorry, winter fans. I'm finished with it. I was finished with it three months ago. Forget the frozen pipes and the hairy roads. My style is so cramped by the perpetual cold hands and the stiffness of the muscles. I don't enjoy the brownness of the earth, the gray skies, or my inability to smell anything. Some people feel more alive in the crispness of winter air, but for me it's the opposite. Winter is a season of dead. Give me one month to go snowboarding and make Christmas look right, and then we can be done. (Coming up at eleven: What my car thinks of winter - uncensored!)
What a relief that daylight savings time is here. Once the echoing void of galactic darkness starting at 4:30pm is behind us, it feels like planet Earth again. It feels like spring. A good friend once said, "it feels hopeful." I can say with confidence that I'm not made for winter. I'm a warm weather guy. Living...in...umm...Montana. Because that makes perfect sense.
And yet...it's a good thing winter comes.
The two previous winters have been pretty friendly to me - relatively warm, dry, and short, without too many cold snaps or treacherous roads. (That went spectacularly out the window this year.) And both times I've gone through such winters, I've felt a sneaky kind of glee. Glee because the winter doesn't get in the way too much, doesn't inconvenience me as much, doesn't last as long as it could.
And sneaky because I feel...kinda guilty, I guess? Because I know that every snowstorm could be a good thing. Necessary, even. It might melt and drench the high country, prevent future forest fires. It might raise the water levels in our lakes and rivers for the summer, benefit wildlife. It might insulate winter wheat from the lethal cold.
I want this blasted season to end, but I know full well there's a good reason for it.
"Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." - James 1:4
A season must accomplish its purpose.
Something in the childish part of me sinks and goes "Ehhh, great." I wish I had an easier time appreciating God's offer of growth. I have to force myself to do so. We've all got our winters. Unanswered prayer, waiting, sometimes from God's hand, sometimes now. And when I'm bare-white-knuckling my steering wheel just to keep from skidding off the straight and narrow - well, hang the rules, I just want spring to come.
But what if that maturity and completion could be a really good thing?
What if it watered and preserved life for me later down the road? God's looking out for me. He wants me to be able to enjoy blessings and pass trials coming later on. I'm gonna need maturity to do either. I remember the fall of 2007, when the fires were so numerous and the smoke was so thick that hiking in Jewel Basin was a raspy chore and you couldn't see more than three blocks downtown.
I don't want that in my life. It's back to the ol' "pay now or pay later" decision. God offers to irrigate my character and preserve me for great things later.
I may be sitting here and eagerly watching the snow line creep back up the mountains every single day, and I know God doesn't begrudge me my eagerness. But he's got a spiritual water cycle that I'm really going to be grateful for later on.
So I'll persevere.
I just hope God helps me fix my windshield wipers. I think I yanked one of them out of alignment trying to thaw it the other day, stupid thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment