I love summertime. I like the warmth and the sunshine (especially in Ohio where we have our share of grey days). I soak up the long days where I’ve worked and played so hard that I fall into bed at night exhausted. But still, there’s something about winter making its appearance that I welcome when the chill first arrives in the mid-autumn air, and we get ready to settle in for the cold months ahead. I’m not the biggest fan of our evenings being longer, but it does change my routine somewhat to a calmer pace.

I’m learning to appreciate winter:  the change in temperature, bundling up in layers to stay warm, hot cocoa, the stillness of a night with new-falling snow, and the slowing down of life for a time. It brings a time of reflection and restoration if I allow it. Winter teaches me how to wait and learn and grow, even if no signs of growth are apparent. It reveals to my heart that there is always life underneath somewhere, underneath the weight of whatever problems are currently present. Something is dying in the winter, but something is also growing deep beneath it all getting ready to blossom.

I wonder if one of the reasons God gives us winter is to give us rest. Maybe He’s teaching us to learn how to be peaceful with slowing down a bit, to appreciate the beauty of all seasons He created — the seasons of nature and also of our lives. I’m learning not to begrudge the lessons of winter but to receive them and all they have to offer me. Winter, if we embrace it, can be a time to become quieter in our souls, while we wait for spring to blossom forth with renewed purpose, energy, and life.