In the last month I have been struck by the joys and rest that comes with winter and how beautiful full seasons are.  I have thought & pondered much on how the seasons of nature true, full, and beautiful seasons are much like the seasons we live as people.  Winter is beautiful, restful, , it solicits covering in the form of warm coats, scarves, fuzzy blankets, and fur lined slippers.  Snow covered hills & fields are beautiful when untouched.  The snow covers the once tall overgrown fields beneath in a blanket of pure white concealing the death that lies below. 

I drive to work each day at the opposite times of most people; I drive to work at 4 in the afternoon and home from work at around 6:30am.  Driving home as the sun rises has been an unexpected joy each morning especially after a light snow fall.  Driving home the sun rises and the light snow across the hills of Kansas communicates a rest and a peace I’ve not ever seen.  The brightness that reflects off of the snow covered hills is almost blinding, but so hard to stop looking at. In these drives I sense God revealing so much about how winter is beautiful, how it is to be embraced, and how the winters of my own soul are not actually times of death but times of preparation for the life that would follow in the coming spring.  I've always loved snow, but seeing snow so often is quite nice.  Snow covered roof tops & snow cover fields that are unoccupied and sleeping until the coming season when the corn fields are planted & fertilized yet again are gorgeous here in central Kansas.  Underneath those snow covered fields is ground; resting, recovering, and waiting for the next season of fruit.  

My favorite thing about winter is the silence and invitation to solitude.  The sense of peace.  The overwhelming sense of rest once you move past the Christmas/Holiday shopping craze that American consumerism has created (of which I’m partly to blame I work in retail).  If you really listen to winter she’s saying, “quiet down, drink a cup of tea, be healed.  My snow covered fields are simply a reflection of the covering, the healing, and the quiet that come from my King.”  I spent two years on an island and my team and I often joked about the eternal summer we were living.  There was no winter, no spring, no fall, just summer and honestly I got burned there; physically, emotionally, and about everything elsingly.  It was not just two years of heat it was two years of fire.  The fire drove out the dross, I am more refined.  But now, here in winter I am being covered and I am being healed.  Here in winter I am breathing in the breath of fresh air that is a new a different a quiet season.

I came from the seemingly never ending fire into what looked like was going to be another season of death, but oh no my friends this winter is much needed & beautiful.  There is a covering from heaven, a white, pure, and soft covering of the Father’s affirmation.  There is not death underneath that covering, but rather ground being healed and prepared to produce once again.  There is a much needed & desired solitude and silence.  When I moved to Kansas the Father spoke, "I'm bring you here to heal you." This winter, this hiddenness, this quietness, this solitude, this pause is like healing waters covering me and refreshing me.  I was burned, I was touched by fire, and as I've come out of the furnace my skin is recovering but my heart was not scorched.  Oh the joys and adventure of the summer but oh the rich peace of this winter.  How long this winter will last I know not, but I welcome it not as a season of death or hiddenness but as a season of healing and preparation for the spring that is promised to come.