The snow this week was a delight for me. Not enough to bother shoveling but enough to remind me of all the things I love about snow. Snow softens the sounds of the air and gives a delightful freshness to even the most drab of locations. There seems to always be construction equipment moving about at McMaster, but this week when I walked across campus the snow softened the sounds to the point where you could only hear the steps of the people near to you.
Snow on the ground re-frames these days in their proper perspective. Of course it’s cold; it’s winter. Snow covers the dirt and the grime, at least for a little while. It decorates the empty branches. Snow reminds me that, ‘this too shall pass.’ Cold dead frozen mud looks like it could stay that way forever but nothing makes spring look more likely than a light dusting of newly fallen fresh snow.
Our lives have seasons too. You maybe in a quiet season where things are as they seem they should be, or you might be a season of storms or a time of trial. No matter what time it is in your life, Solomon reminds us in Ecc. 3: 11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time…”
In school this week I read a quote from St. Francis de Sales who wrote,
Do not look forward to the changes and chances of this life in fear; rather look to them with full hope that as they arise, God, whose child you are, will deliver you out of them. He is your Keeper. He has kept you safe this far. Hold fast to His strong hand and He will lead you safely through all things; and when you cannot stand, He will bear you in His arms.
Do not worry about what may happen tomorrow. Our Heavenly Father will either shield you from suffering, or give you the strength to bear it.
God grants us deliverance from struggle from time to time but during other seasons, he delays, in His wisdom, for our good. If you are in that season please find someone here who can stand with you. We need to be a community of people who bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6: 2) and unless you share your story with someone, they will never know what you are experiencing.
Suspended by Denise Levertov
I had grasped God’s garment in the void
but my hand slipped on the rich silk of it.
The “everlasting arms” my sister loved to remember
must have upheld my leaden weight from falling, even so
for though I claw at empty air and feel nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.
ephesians2eight 