Have you ever felt like Winter lasted about 6 weeks too long?

Admittedly, after a warm, experience filled Summer, the Fall colors and breezes bring a fresh focus, almost like beginning a more organized season. But Oh, even with the lovely colors of falling leaves around me; my heart loves the fantasy idea of unending happy, frivolous summer days!!  But Winter in Bend always comes. Sometimes it starts slow and I grab onto every happy day that is above 60 degrees, sometimes October is a flurry of heavy snow and freezing temperatures and my heart hunkers down for a long winter.  YES! there is real beauty as the snow covers the Cascade mountains; really lovely. But, still, my heart continues to long for the sweetness of the flowers of Spring and the long warm evenings of Summer.

Again I ask, Have you ever felt like Winter lasted 6 weeks too long?

My feelings and responses to the weather seasons is also a lot like my feelings and responses to the seasons of my life. Oh how I love the happy times when it feels like the sun is out and all is well, or the season where my life appears to be a Spring garden and there is sweet fruitfulness to the work I am involved in, or perhaps a season of fresh beginnings and reorganization much like Fall and the beginning of a school year for a student!

But Winter, what to do with Winter!?   The season in life when I must bundle up to prepare for the elements, where it feels darker, colder, and the freedom to be lighthearted is challenged by the need to have great caution not to “slip and fall on the ice”.  I find in the winter seasons of my life I spend more time alone; I read more, write more, pray more, and rest more.

Have you ever felt like the Winter season of your life lasted 6 weeks too long?

Well, there are a few things I know to be true:

1.  1 Peter 5:7 says: ” Let Him have all your worries and your cares, for He is always thinking about your and watching everything that concerns you”.

2.  Seasons will always change, it is inevitable.

3.  Each season is necessary both in nature and in our lives. We need the growth found in the coldness of Winter in order to fully appreciate the the seasons to follow.

But, to be fully honest…….I ‘ll take Summer any day!!!