Winter has a tough time getting over its bad reputation. “The Winter of our Discontent” of literary fame and the lay person’s “winter blues” were bad enough. Now, SAD or “Seasonal Affective Disorder” has been elevated to an official psychologically-based malady. When it’s cold outside, when the snow and ice comes, when the days get so short that we leave the house and come home in the dark, then all our negativity starts to “snowball” (sorry) and we tailspin into depression-like symptoms. For those of us who live in the frozen north, losing three to four months a year to winter represents a major loss to inactivity or doldrums.
Not everyone hates winter. Ski enthusiasts, ice-fishermen, skaters and snowmobilers, sledders and tobogganers, hunters and hikers revel in the blustery months of December, January and February. Most kids squeal with delight at the first sign of snow. And, of course, guys with snowplows on the front of their F-350 diesel-powered pick-ups salivate at more than two inches of the white stuff, not to mention retailers who would love to sell a record number of snowblowers, snowshovels or even bags of rock salt.
Most of us, however, dread winter. We just grit our teeth and grind it out. Our secular friends have all kinds of remedies for the winter blahs, from changing diets, to feel-good pills, to building light boxes, to re-arranging the furniture, to vigorous exercise, and to long trips to Hawaii . Not all of us can or should do it all, like the Hawaiian thing or especially not the drugs, but we can all do more than just sit there and suffer. We can turn our negatives into positives through applying the principle of scripture to the situation.
God made winter. Remember that. “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22. You may not like everything about winter, but if you accept the fact that it is from God, you will have a better frame of mind to deal with it. When the temperature plummets and the snow flakes pile up, look up into the heavens and breathe a thank you to God. If it were not good for the earth and for us, God would not have built it into the ecosystem. Hatred and annoyance are bad choices that you do not have to make.
What’s good about winter? Outside, good things happen to the ground. Secret processes in the fields prepare the soil for the spring planting, slow melting snow waters the ground in ways that a rain cannot accomplish and the bitter cold kills off many bugs and bacteria that would otherwise overrun us. (When’s the last time you slapped a mosquito in January?) Inside our homes and in the confines of our hearts, winter lets us busy ourselves with activities that summer affords us no time to do.
The Apostle Paul used the term “wintering” in several places. “I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey.” 1 Corinthians 16:6. And, “Be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis: for I have determined there to winter.” Titus 3:12. Paul accepted the reality that he could not travel in the winter. Therefore, he set aside the time to do the things that he put off during the summer. Reading, research, praying, meditating, thinking, writing and planning for the spring is more than enough to fill up our dreary, overcast winter days. When you burn the light on the inside, it doesn’t matter what the weather is on the outside.
Whining and complaining about the weather shrinks your brain and shrivels your spirit. It makes a difficult situation a thousand times worse. Praise God for even the cold and the snow. Make it a productive venture. Don’t frown and grimace your life away. Life does not stop in October and re-start in April. The days of winter are just as much a part of your life as the summer. I happen to believe that wintering well will give you a far better spring and summer.
Now, don’t get me wrong. A trip to warm weather in February may be just what the doctor ordered for you! Just don’t make getting away the only solution to your winter survival. Your survival can become a glorious revival!