Note: This had been sitting as a draft for a few weeks and I never got back to it until now when I logged in to start another post. Winter is seeming a bit longer after a few more feet of snow have fallen, and it is once again a white-out today, but it’ll be the end of February in another week. By this time last year, we were prepping to start seeds for the garden because there was no snow.
I used to think winter lasted forever, at least that’s what it felt like. It was a long season that you just had to endure while counting down the days ’til spring. This thinking had been ingrained in me while living in frozen tundra-type places like “da U.P.” and “Minnesota, eh” for most of the last 20 years. It’s just in these last 2 years that I’ve changed my mind. Winter’s not so long after all. Of course it’s easy to say this on a 54° day at the end of January, and the big lake definitely keeps it warmer here, but I’ve been thinking this even before today. Something seems wrong when the dirty ground is not covered in clean, white snow all winter. And doesn’t every winter need a good ol’ blizzard? Or maybe I’m just getting old and want to keep the “back in my day…” stories alive. Plus, as much as I love a warm day, I always wonder if we would take those perfect weather days for granted and stop noticing and appreciating them if we didn’t have the contrast.
It helps to look back and look forward to seeing the ground that we cannot yet see.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1