Winter Changes Everything

Where I live, Winter rushes in with a furry and like a guest who doesn't know when to leave.

It snows where we live. A lot. And that's why I stock-up on non-perishables as I posted here ~~ I do not like driving in the snow!

Oh, snow when it's heavy upon tree branches and sparkling in front of houses gives an Enchanted Land sort of look, I agree. And it's even a fun challenge to drag and yank your shopping cart through an unplowed supermarket parking lot. But when snow is on the busy, icy streets and you're gripping your steering wheel lest you slide into oncoming traffic? Well, no. Just no. 

So I remain home much in the winter and pray for my family members who must drive roads covered with snow, ice, salt and mush.

There's also the added hours I must shovel the snow in our driveway (oh, the energy and fortitude required!).  I think I heard on Oprah that shoveling snow for 15 minutes is the equivalent of a three-hour workout at the gym. Well, ok, if you shovel like the Looney Tunes' Tazmanian Devil and don't pace yourself~~maybe. But I try to use common sense and chip away at it slowly throughout the silent afternoon. 

I try not to complain about shoveling snow since it's the only real exercise I get all winter, considering it's usually too frigid/slippery to take daily walks.

Winter slows me down, and my life is already pretty slow-paced (on purpose). If I dread (uh-oh! There's that word again) anything, it's becoming so busy that I miss all the delights God weaves into our days~~ones which take a calm, watchful eye to notice. I'm determined not to miss a single custom-made surprise He sends me.

But anyway, some of my winter days become too long even for me. Often before Tom gets home from work, I've read enough books for the day, spent time with Jesus, caught up on my email, played with the cats, done enough housework, and shoveled enough snow. And so those one or two hours after the curtain has closed on daylight can get a little too dark and too quiet (Tom works 12-hour shifts. Twelve hours at home on grey, winter days can sometimes feel like an eternity, even to us happy homemaker types.) 

So I usually start preparing dinner early and flip on the kitchen TV for comedies which will make me laugh.

Winter is a contemplative time, one which I would greatly miss if we had only three seasons. In fact, one year while living in Nevada we had no snow and no real winter. For the next 8 months I had an eerie feeling that I'd missed something. That something had been forgotten and I'd never taken the time to remember what it was. And that year I concluded that I need winter. I need the pattern of the seasons which God in His wisdom provided when He first thought-up the whole winter/summer/spring/autumn idea.

Snowy winters. They're long, rough and a challenge, but hey! They are just a season. They, too, will pass.



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