Day 4 - seasons greetings

The other day I was driving between one place and another on the way to a Jo Jingles class on a road I have driven hundreds of times before.  The winter sun was low in the sky and everything was looking a bit bare and stark.  I came round a corner and all of a sudden was aware of a very large house on my left which I am absolutely certain I had never seen before.  I was surprised.  How could such a large and imposing building so close to the road have gone unnoticed all the many times I had been past it?    I realised that the road was lined with quite large trees and that the reason I had not noticed that house before was because for most of the year it is hidden from sight by foliage.

I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit.   He seemed to be pointing out that in the winter seasons, when everything is stark and seemingly dead, sometimes things are revelaed which would otherwise not be seen.   As I pondered this going down the road I realised that not only could I see what , in spring and summer time would be hidden from view, but also I could see much further in the winter.  A view unobscured by foliage carried my eye to the far horizon.   Interesting.

Then the other day I was coming in through the back door of my house and spied the hyacinth bulbs which I planted a few weeks ago happily sprouting in their pots outside on the windowledge.  Green shoots pushing up through the soil in a really cold spell, when the first frosts are making themselves known.  And I thought about the winter again, and how we mostly see it as a time of hibernation, barrenness, decay, inertia.   But for some things winter is the time for growth, new life, promise, hope.

So I guess the lesson is this - if you find yourself in a winter season where everything is in hibernation, there's a chill in the air and no fruit to be seen, look again.  Perhaps God is wanting to show you things which have been hidden .  Things that you didnt have time to notice in the spring and summer, or which were obscured by the leaves on the trees.   And perhaps in this winter season there are still things which are about to burst into life in the middle of the snow and frosts.  Maybe in your winter God will plant snowdrops and hyacinths and crocuses and holly trees.