Winter is fast approaching in Kansas. The night air is colder, the wind sharper, and the daylight shorter.
No one seems to like winter. In the Midwest, winter becomes the season that you must endure, so that once again you can enjoy spring and then summer. CS Lewis wrote that the curse on Narnia was that it ‘was always winter, and never Christmas’, the implication being that the only redeeming quality of this season was Christmas.
Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary. You see, I like winter. Not really sure why, I just do. I think part of it is the ruggedness of it all, the need to ‘survive’ it. A few years ago we had a terrible ice storm, one that left us without electricity for almost a week in sub freezing temperatures. Our home is one hundred percent electric, and so we were in quite the dilemma. It was miserable, all of us sleeping in the living room as we tried to heat this limited space with portable heat … and having to carry water from the pond just to flush the toilets!
But there was also an adventure in that. My dad tells stories of growing up without electricity, about putting hot bricks in his bed at night to keep warm and of thawing ice for water to drink. Part if me longs for that adventure.
Our Christian lives are similar, I suppose. We too are living this time trapped in a curse of winter. It won’t be this way for ever, but it is now. And we, we have a choice on how we survive these days. So often I find my self just trying to get through them, depressed that they aren’t somehow better, angry that there is no sign of a thaw. But occasionally, I am increasingly beginning to see them as the adventure that they are, as a place that I get to learn how to live out this life of Christ in me and that I get to find out if his promises really are enough … if I really am enough in Him.
The thing that I like about winter in Kansas is that it is a season. It will pass and the flowers will bloom. We likewise are living in a season that will one day pass. But for now, it is nothing if it is not an adventure!
to the King,
David
You can read this and others at our main blog: blog.knightvisionministriies.com
or visit our website, www.knightvisionministries.com
No one seems to like winter. In the Midwest, winter becomes the season that you must endure, so that once again you can enjoy spring and then summer. CS Lewis wrote that the curse on Narnia was that it ‘was always winter, and never Christmas’, the implication being that the only redeeming quality of this season was Christmas.
Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary. You see, I like winter. Not really sure why, I just do. I think part of it is the ruggedness of it all, the need to ‘survive’ it. A few years ago we had a terrible ice storm, one that left us without electricity for almost a week in sub freezing temperatures. Our home is one hundred percent electric, and so we were in quite the dilemma. It was miserable, all of us sleeping in the living room as we tried to heat this limited space with portable heat … and having to carry water from the pond just to flush the toilets!
But there was also an adventure in that. My dad tells stories of growing up without electricity, about putting hot bricks in his bed at night to keep warm and of thawing ice for water to drink. Part if me longs for that adventure.
Our Christian lives are similar, I suppose. We too are living this time trapped in a curse of winter. It won’t be this way for ever, but it is now. And we, we have a choice on how we survive these days. So often I find my self just trying to get through them, depressed that they aren’t somehow better, angry that there is no sign of a thaw. But occasionally, I am increasingly beginning to see them as the adventure that they are, as a place that I get to learn how to live out this life of Christ in me and that I get to find out if his promises really are enough … if I really am enough in Him.
The thing that I like about winter in Kansas is that it is a season. It will pass and the flowers will bloom. We likewise are living in a season that will one day pass. But for now, it is nothing if it is not an adventure!
to the King,
David
You can read this and others at our main blog: blog.knightvisionministriies.com
or visit our website, www.knightvisionministries.com
