What I wanted to write:
"Winter is awful. But -- here's the bright side, folks."
What I actually am thinking:
"Winter is awful. There is no bright side, and if I slip on the ice, somebody's going down with me."
What the (slightly) more reasonable part of my brain decided to write:
There is this scene from the movie Cinderella Man that sticks out in my head, even years after I have seen the movie. It takes place in the winter, during the Great Depression, and Russell Crowe's family is hungry and worried. And at one point, one of the children looks up to his mother and asks why all these bad things are happening. Her answer isn't very philosophical.
She turns to the child and says, "Sometimes life is just hard. For no reason at all."
For some reason, every time I am trudging in the snow, I remember that quote and I remember that sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes it's just cold outside, and you would like to grin and bear it and find meaning in it and be joyful and loving, and maybe someday you will be like that, but right now -- right now, it's okay to just be cold.
To look back on all of your blessings. To think forward to the spring when things will be blooming again. To be generous to those less fortunate who have to spend the night in this weather. And to simply trudge on through the snow, with a quiet, undramatic faithfulness to our daily duties that still gives us a sense of peace even in the winter. We can be still and still faithful, even when our footing is unsure, even when the wind is blowing.
And in that quiet, simple faithfulness, we discover that faith, hope, and love are all still there, even in the winter, not because of anything we do, but because God is there, making up for what we lack.
That quiet, simple faithfulness makes us available to God and free for the next step. We follow him through the winter-y moments with a simple faithfulness, and that simple act of surrender draws ever deeper into his love, emptying us of ourselves so that we can be filled with something more, dying to ourselves so that we can bear more fruit.
For those of you who love the cold -- enjoy the last few weeks of real winter. For the rest of you who are like me: trudge on.
