Winter Reflections

Spring is a time of awakening.  A season when nature wakes from its winter slumber and begins to stretch its majestic arms once again.  A cyclical experience of death and rebirth that is a marriage of necessity.  You cannot have death without birth nor can you have rebirth without death.

I’ve been struggling through a winter in my own life for a while now.  Frozen in spirit and heart. A season brought on by many things over time.  It has been the darkest journey of my 32 years – a darkness that seemed to envelope me and to block out glimmers of sunlight that I desperately needed.  A winter where I felt barricaded in isolation within myself and life appears to vanish in the thick flurries that quickly bury me.  It has been a long winter, a harsh winter, a lonely winter . . . a winter of thievery that robbed me of modest energy and simple hope. 

But the thaw has begun.  Ever so slowly the walls around me are beginning to melt.  Rays of sunshine are poking through the snow and giving me glimpses of hope.  My body, frozen for so long, is beginning to ache as it rediscovers movement and life.  My arms feel heavy and weighted as if I have forgotten how to move them. 

This will be slow and I will need to be patient.  Part of me wishes to just stay in the winter and go to sleep because I’m afraid.  Afraid of the rebirth process, afraid of the energy that will be required, afraid that I will always have to work to keep the winter at bay.  But I remind myself that thawing out is a journey, a series of slow forward-motions where joy and pleasure must be found in every small step.

Lord, thank you for the winter that has taught me brokenness and pain. Thank you for the journey that has emptied me of all my own strength and resources so that I am thrust into Your strength and resources. Thank you for allowing me to experience a pilgrimage that so many walk so that I might be a more compassionate and understanding pastor and friend. Forgive me for trying to go it alone for so long and for not realizing that I can never go it alone because You will never leave me alone.

I love You more than words can express. I owe You everything.