A Prayer for Winter

A Prayer for Winter It’s the most wonderful time of the year! We have a season full of sledding, skiing, skating, and cozy cups of hot chocolate to look forward to. We've had holidays and presents and evenings spent watching the same movies we always watch this time of year. The snow glistens in the trees, and the frost makes everything look glassy and delicate. It’s beautiful—until it isn’t. Cars drive over the fresh snow, and boots turn up mud, turning everything instead into brown sludge. Tensions rise over cleaning the house for company, and everyone seems to be on edge without the ability to get some space outdoors. And, some of us live in climates where we don’t even get to enjoy the snowy days of winter! It’s just unending grey and rain… Or, if there is snow, it’s more of a reason for panic than wonder because the infrastructure of our city isn’t prepared to handle such low temperatures. Winter is a season of beauty and scarcity. It’s a time of joy and anticipation, yet also of melancholy and just wanting it to be warm again, dangit. The tensions of this season sometimes mimic the tensions we feel living in the world. We notice all of the goodness and the brokenness of the world around us while longing for a Kingdom that is to come. As we lean into this winter of our lives, let’s pray to the God who created all seasons and has something to teach us through them all.