Fall in Love with Winter
I’m a Michigan girl through and through. All of my 51 years except for one have been lived through the cycle of four distinct seasons. I was born loving the feel of the sun on my skin. Summer in Michigan is amazing. Just about anywhere in Pure Michigan is within driving distance of a lake, often one of the Great Lakes which you have to see to believe! I bet you didn’t know that Michigan has more freshwater shoreline than any other state – 3,000 miles to be exact! But summer in Michigan is short. Any summer-like weather we get before Memorial Day or after Labor Day feels like extra days stolen from its neighbors.
Spring feels like “baby summer.” Random days hit 80 degrees and we race to the beach or layout on our decks to get a head-start on a tan. Every year I watch for it but inevitably miss the moment the tree buds unfurl into full spring-green leaves. Suddenly the world sounds different, I can hear the wind in the trees again, rustling the new growth. It smells different too. A whiff out my front door brings me to rain and dirt mixed with the short-lived sweetness of hyacinths and lilacs. Nobody who loves summer can be mad at spring.
Fall has a sneaky way of distracting me from the fact that it’s stealing my beloved summer by putting a cup of cider and one hand and a donut in my other. It’s hard to be mad when those flavors are on your tongue. Fall also keeps me busy pulling chunky sweaters and cute boots out of storage to wear on a hayride or through the corn maze. Even a mundane day of driving errands can become a blaze of glory through fire-colored forests in the fall.
But winter what does winter have to offer a sun-loving, non-skiing girl from Michigan? Curling up by the fireplace with a good book and cup of cocoa is cozy but not enough to stop me from tensing up against winter. I’m embarrassed to say I spent a good chunk of my life just waiting for winter to be over. But then I bought a good pair of boots and made a mid-life discovery. There is no bad weather if you have the right gear!
I have fallen in love with winter! The winter world is full of opposites. The sky can be a wide-open expanse of the brightest blue you’ve ever seen or the sky can turn steely gray and drop close to the earth like a lid on a pot. It’s quieter than other seasons until it isn’t. With no leaves to rustle, the wind is sneaky and can’t be heard until it gains enough momentum to bend trunks and branches and suddenly sound like a train. Standing still I can hear random piles of snow falling from branches, but as soon as I take a step, the crunching of snow drowns out all other sounds. While summer is obvious in its beauty, winter surprises you as it takes your breath away.
I’ve logged hundreds of miles in my warm winter boots. Learning to fall in love with winter has taught me important lessons about facing winter seasons in my soul.
There is beauty in opposites.
You can be madly in love with both ends of the spectrum. In fact, appreciating them both may help you love each one better. This season of my life has me on the pendulum swing between quiet solitude and a rowdy full house. I find myself yearning for one while holding the other and forgetting that a brief day or two before I had them in reverse. Knowing that before too long my house will be packed to the corners with motion and sound makes me able to savor instead of feel sadness about the days of slow quietness that also appear.
Being blind to the beauty of the present seems to be baked into the very DNA of being human. Our hearts seem bent on wanting what’s next instead of being able to look down with appreciation and trust at what God has placed in our hands. A yearning posture is a tool Satan will use to rob us as surely as he used it against Eve in the garden.
God has a different purpose in each season, but they all are good.
God isn’t trying to heat the earth and cause crops to grow in winter; those are summer’s reasons. His winter purposes include rest and stillness not seen in the other seasons. So it is with me. God isn’t accomplishing every one of his plans for me at the same time. He has a good plan for me and he’s always working.
He also knows the best order for the work to get done. When he led the children of Israel out of Egypt, he took them the long way because he knew that if they encountered the Philistines and were faced with a war, they might lose heart and head back to Egypt.
God knows where he’s taking me and what I’ll need in order to face it. He has a plan.
The right gear makes all the difference.
This Pure Michigan summer girl now looks forward to the first big snow because I have boots and gloves that can stand up to freezing temperatures. This gear has allowed me to immerse myself in winter and fall in love with it. The places in my life that feel like winter, the disappointments or times of waiting, are the places I resist and try to escape in the same way I resisted winter. I’ve had to get creative to understand what gear my body and soul need for these winter seasons but I’m slowly building up an arsenal to help me not rush past the unseen work of God.
Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (ESV). Each of those days given to us by the Lord make up the seasons. And each season is designed on purpose. If you find yourself in winter, don’t despair! Get a good pair of boots and get out into it so you don’t miss the gifts it holds!
lives a life that is all about her people. She’s convinced that being Mrs. to one and Mommy to eight will be her most significant way to serve Jesus. She wants to use her life to cheer on and coach the women around her. She is on staff with Project Hopeful working to give a hand up to moms in poverty in Ethiopia. You can find her at loriflorida.com.
Photograph © Sydney Rae, used with permission
