Winter is here.

Last summer, while the trees were green, the flowers in our meadow were fragrant and the grass was long, a wise man visited us. He spoke of the changing seasons, each season having its own comforts, its own challenges.

“In winter”, he said, “the trees are bare and clouds cover the sky”.

In winter the mornings are dark, the lights go out late and come on early.
In winter the cold bites hard and deep.
In winter ice and snow come down so frequently. The days are cold, the paths and roads treacherous and slippery.

The wise man told us of autumn, a time of fruitfulness, for giving. Then comes a time when there is nothing left to give, we burn out, we enter into our winter.

“Winter,” he said, “is a time for lying fallow, for taking a rest, for preparing for a new future.”

In winter’s long nights we can see the light of the stars.
Winter’s cold, frosty mornings can be blessed with the most glorious of dawns.
In the isolation imposed by our winter weather, we are turned in on our inner resources.

What are these inner resources? Ponder these words of the Prophet Isaiah:
“I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.”
(ESV Isaiah 45:3)

Mysterious and often elusive are these treasures, yet at the heart of it all is the light of the world, the one called Emmanuel, a name that means God-with-us.

So seek, and you shall find, and, with him, put out into the deep.