Winter Time is a time for pulling back
We have had the most marvelous Winter---so far! --Winters in northeast Ohio are never like this: clear days, bright blue skies, starry nights, not much snow and mild temperatures. I have been busy, sometimes with much activity sometimes with sadness. (Especially since the passing of Freda and Tana) But I have been longing to prune my apple trees. I look out the kitchen window in the morning, but by night, the work remains undone. I have been quietly grumbling, “I’ll be out there trying to do this when the snow is hip deep and I’m sinking in the mud --when I should have gotten this done during the nice days.”
Waiting is the difficult part of our lives. We wait for our doctor’s appointments, for our children to call, for our colds to pass, for our problems to work themselves out. During Winter, the trees pull in, storing up their energy for springtime. In Winter, squirrels dig up my yard looking for stored food to carry them through the Winter. We too need to take some time: some quiet time, some down time, some reflective time, with God’s word, with a good book, in contemplative prayer waiting for God’s word and God’s witness to bear fruit. Sometimes God must even prune out that which is no longer needed in our lives for new growth to begin.
Let us use this time of Winter to listen and look carefully that we may see God anew in our lives, in our activities, in our useful application and appreciation of this time God has given us—Winter time, reflective time—knowing that Spring will come again!
Let us go forth in Faith,
