End of Winter Musings

Winter. This year it goes on and on. I keep bumping into one big question: What amazing thing is God doing with all this snow and cold?

Thinking about winter this way gives me hope. I am all about hope and watching for the first signs of life being brought forth from winter. I wish I were biologist enough to know how 
so much winter affects life. What is going on down under all this snow? Will the flowers and crops be especially abundant and beautiful? And the animals, how will it affect them? 

I think one way God uses nature is to teach us hope. He has made the ebbing and flowing of seasons a part of human nature; it resonates with us and makes sense. God says in Ecclesiastes 3 that He has "made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart." What I learn from watching seasons change ~ maybe especially seemingly endless seasons ~ helps build hope into my heart. 

Romans 8:22-25 has been one of my memory passages:

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience

It almost feels as if nature is groaning under the pain of winter and waiting for spring, as Lewis showed when Narnia was under the White Witch's rule. What will all that snow give birth to?

But spring is coming. And what application does this have for different types of "winter" ~ what beautiful glory is God working under all the stuff I'd rather not experience? I am waiting with hope to see.

Here She Comes

Last year "they" started naming winter storms. Meet this year's first 26:

Apparently Atlas has started already. Oh boy. Oh joy.

bleh and ahhhhhhh. AKA March

mid-March 

sleet icicles on

empty birdfeeder. Dryer

 fluffs warm towels inside.

Just Wondering

I never have understood why some people like winter...

Sixty-four Degrees

Really? This is the middle of August, in Pennsylvania, four in the afternoon, the time of year and of day I expect hazy, hot, and humid. Instead it feels pretty well into fall and is so dark the photosensitive window candles are on. It is not really raining but it is far from dry out there ~ kind of like a movie set  in eternal misty fog. The Siberian Husky dog days of summer. 

My Life in a Single Quote

Yesterday was hot and very very humid here, the kind of day when you just can't breathe. Evening service was in a small church without airco. Afterwards, I noticed Mr Young Smartdresser in his dress pants, black buttondown shirt, and grey vest. I asked him how he could handle it.

He shrugged and said, "I was in Iraq."

"True. I forgot. What is it there, like 108?"

He said more like somewhere between 110 and sometimes 130. Now I felt somewhat bad for even mentioning the heat and not feeling the need for mittens instead, but, instead of shutting up and thanking him for serving, I kept going, "What is that even like? Do you feel like you have a fever or what?"

His exact quote, "You just get used to not getting used to it."

I know exactly what he means.  :-P

Heat Meter

Ya know the way you learn in Scouts to figure out how warm the summer night is by counting how many times a minute the cricket chirps?

Well. I have a related idea.


We are right at 99 degrees at the moment and also on the humid side. And I did a grocery run. And I observed a phenomenon, not unlike the chirping of crickets: the irritability of parents with small children in tow. 


My untested thesis is that you can correlate temperature to how many times in Wal*Mart you hear a parent ask "do you want me to spank your butt?"


* side note: I am still waiting to hear an affirmative response from any child to that sort of question.

My Life in a Nutshell