When we went to Salt Lake for a weekend in March, something struck me. We had left sunny, seemingly summer, Texas weather and had traveled to a place that was still experiencing winter. The signs were everywhere, trees without leaves, snow on the mountaintops, yellowing grass. What occurred to me in the morning moments of looking out at the barren trees, was how God has ordained seasons for particular times all around the world. Some seasons last longer than others. It made me remember that just because I was living in summer, it didn’t mean that the rest of the world was too.
I have always thought of winter as being the season where things die and disappear. But what I realized was the things I thought were dead in winter were really alive. The only reason I thought they were dead is because I could not see the life on the outside. I was depending on what I saw to be the judge of whether something had life, when in reality, that life is being transformed on the inside to produce something even more beautiful than the season before.
When we are tempted to think of our own period of winter and mourning as leaving us stagnant and barren, we must remember that just because the signs of life are not apparent on the outside, God is still breathing His life into us and growing us into something that will be beautiful again. Being in Salt Lake also helped me remember to be sensitive to those who are in a season of winter even though I might be living in summer.
I have always thought of winter as being the season where things die and disappear. But what I realized was the things I thought were dead in winter were really alive. The only reason I thought they were dead is because I could not see the life on the outside. I was depending on what I saw to be the judge of whether something had life, when in reality, that life is being transformed on the inside to produce something even more beautiful than the season before.
When we are tempted to think of our own period of winter and mourning as leaving us stagnant and barren, we must remember that just because the signs of life are not apparent on the outside, God is still breathing His life into us and growing us into something that will be beautiful again. Being in Salt Lake also helped me remember to be sensitive to those who are in a season of winter even though I might be living in summer.
