earth stood hard as iron*

Chicago winters can be pretty..brutal. I love holing up in my house with candles and a good book, but this has been one of those winters that just...feels like winter.
After a series of crazy events, I have to say: I would love to skip to the month of May right now. Recently my mom lent me this book "Spiritual Rhythm: Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soul" by Mark Buchanan, so I could read the chapter on Winter. This was so helpful for me in this season of winter and I wanted to share his thoughts with you...

"If we are to bear much fruit- if that's the goal of the Christian life- then the best model for spiritual maturity is seasons. Fruit grows in seasons, and all seasons are necessary for growing it. And seasons are as much about what is not happening as what is. It has as much to do with inactivity as with activity, waiting as with working, barrenness as with abundance, dormancy as with vitality."

"Winter is bleak, and cold, and dark, and fruitless. It is a time of forced inactivity, unwelcome brooding, more night than day. Most things are dead, or appear so. It never seems to end."


Buchanan writes about how important each 'season of the soul' is. He talks about the best activities for Winter: praying, pruning, waiting. Yes, I'd rather skip straight to spring and if you're in your own 'dark night of the soul', I'm sure you rather would too. So, while we wait (and prune, and pray...) let's remember that spring is coming.

'Spring is coming,
And all we've been hoping and longing for soon will appear
Spring is coming, spring is coming,
It won't be long now, it's just about here.'**


'Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.'***

*In The Bleak Midwinter, by Christina Rossetti
**Spring is Coming, by Steven Curtis Chapman
***C.S.Lewis