I do not like winter and that is an understatement of that fact. There is nothing fun (at least to me) about this season. It is far too cold, there is too much time spent in a house with windows and doors tightly closed, all the creatures of nature I love to watch are sleeping soundly in their warm dens, going out requires putting on too many layers of clothing and snow shoveling is a task to be put off as long as possible. By February, I have a serious case of cabin fever which makes looking out the window at all of the white, white, white snow an activity to be avoided.
There is but one bright spot in all of this. There is a moment when one goes outside, in my case it's to finally shovel the porch, when if you stop and stand very still you can appreciate the silence of this time of year. I live on 40 acres of farmland with my nearest neighbor a quarter mile down the road. There are no sounds of traffic, snow machines, snow blowers or snowplows. An occasional crack of a branch being broken in the wind interrupts the quiet briefly and then is gone. There is nothing but a blanket of quiet stillness that envelopes me as I look around at what God has created. It sometimes seems like I stand there for the longest time just looking and listening but really it is only a brief moment. But that moment sustains me as I perform the task of shoveling off my porch.
It is my belief that God orchestrates this little moment for me each winter to help me remember that there is beauty even in a season I sincerely dislike.
I'm so glad I read this today, Ellen, because I've forgotten to stand still.
ReplyDeleteShort years back, a friend advised me to begin my day with praise, and to find its song in Nature. For a busy working Mum, hitting the floor running just after 4 in the morning and yet scrambling to get to work on time, I wondered where I'd find the minutes to spare for sky-gazing before leaving home.
But I did. I put a chair outside under my window, beside the flower beds, and I'd sit there and trace the birth of sunrise as it ribboned out in pink, salmon and gold across the slumbering skies. For the barest of minutes, God would touch my soul with a silence nothing else could bring on.
It didn't seem like much, those lean ticks of the clock, but I knew the difference when I went to my days without this brief communing.
Caitlynne