The Promise of Winter…

November 15, 2017 / Blog / Codswallop 0 COMMENTS

Winter can be a sad time for many of us.

The shortening days and lengthening nights can be depressing.

The looming secular and Christian family gatherings can be daunting.

Our tongues can lose control and our actions can be misconstrued.

Winter cannot be skipped,

It cannot be glossed over,

It returns year after year.

It begs to be embraced.

Winter…begs to be embraced

I am planting salvia given to me by a neighbor, working out where to best place it in my beds,
putting pencil to paper in a vague attempt at landscaping.

Looking at the remains of the wilting flowers that I’ve worked so very hard to plant I am tempted to despair. I cannot imagine them crowning my garden with their blue and red flowers, attracting butterflies and honey bees, drenching my palette in colour. But I’ve been promised they will ‘come back’.Somewhere, deep inside my heart, I know they will surprise me when I least expect it, raise my spirits, remind me that God hasn’t forgotten His creation.But first they must die; lie dormant during the cold months.Beneath the frost and snow, the dropping temperatures and gloomy days lies this promise:”I’ll be back…”

Beneath the frost and snow lies this promise.

Here is Winter; and although I don’t physically die, a part of me aches for an everlasting Spring. It takes me a while to adjust to the time change that called this cold weather forth.

I have no control over nature and her darkening days.

I watch my flowers die and the trees that encircle our property lose their leaves, until there is nothing left but bare branches.

I wonder, what did early humans think when everything around them withered?

What signs did they have in the dead of winter that the stripped trees would once again bloom,

buried seeds would start to sprout, hedgerows would come alive and butterflies and bees would adorn the fields of blooming wildflowers?

Where was the promise of another day amidst the deep mid-winter?

The promise of another

I am offered Winter’s cloak if I care to bear it.

The dark nights give me added opportunities to remember and turn to my Savior.

Fewer distractions allow His voice to be more clearly heard in the still of the season to strengthen me for the secular temptations that crowd my life.

“Take heart,” I tell myself.

The enemy is a professional who knows how to make me doubt and spoil moments that should be filled with gladness and joy.

I can’t face Winter alone,

I can slip my hand into God’s and brave it with Him,

and become a child of the light in the darkness.

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Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny. I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along! As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not! In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.