Beauty in Dead Times

I'm not a fan of winter.  I don't like being cold.  I don't like the constant scraping/brushing off the car. Ironically, I don't actually mind shoveling.  I prefer it to lawn-mowing or gardening, which I'm terrible at.  But it's too much bundling, and foggy glasses, and wet/muddy front entrances, shivering in the car, and ICY roads.  I grit my teeth and will myself to endure it until I start seeing glimmers of hope in March and April.

Winter is dead.  Most of nature dies in my part of the world.  How can there be beauty in brown, bare branches of trees and scrubby, dried scraps of leaves and plants in the gardens?

And God says, "Here.  This is how."

"Let me blow in the fog and drape your world in brilliant white."

I am in awe at how a day and a half of constant fog made the frost thicker and thicker.  It grew just like the flowers and leaves in the spring.  Each tiny ice particle a work of art that cannot be replicated in the man-made part of our world.

God has made every season beautiful in its own way.  None of them are "dead" to Him.  There is life and beauty on the bare branches.  He creates a masterpiece in microscopic terms.  He pours life and vibrance into the darkness and death.  He created this magnificent frost from AIR.  I'm sure a meteorologist could explain how fog creates frost, and the scientific reason would be fascinating. And my Master Scientist planned it.  He took the coldest, deadest part of the world and brought joy and life to it.  

I don't think winter will ever be my favourite season, but I am comforted and lifted up in my spirit when I so clearly see how there is beauty in every season; intentional, God-given.  While people grieve their loved ones, while so many fight depression every day, while death feels like it's knocking on every door... there is life.  Life!  Amen.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.  In Him was life, and that life was the light of men."  ~John 1:1-4, NIV