The Covenant

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

In case you haven't noticed from my ramblings, winter is a topic that occupies a big part of my mental processes at this time. Everyone around here longs for spring, but I like to think I have more invested in its arrival than most people. I won't go into the details, but key functions in my house are affected by the temperatures and my house is under-insulated and drafty. Besides that, I just want to feel a warm breeze on my cheeks, listen to a birdsong, smell the scent of wildflowers on the breeze, and run barefoot through soft, new grass. I want winter to be over. I did winter and I'm ready for something new.

In spite of my wishes, winter keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny and all of us paltry humans are left squirming in its grasp, bored, on-edge, and doing random things just to break the monotony. The other night I cut my own hair for the first time; it needed a trim, and why not? At least it gave me something to do (Even though Tiggy sang me the "I'm a Bald Bunny, I Got No Fur" song while I was doing it.). Laura and I have started an exercise program to get our legs in shape after months of low usage. Today we went "jogging" up snow mountain and down because the wind was too harsh and cold to leave the shelter of our trees.

Still the winter winds blow, deep snow covers the landscape, the thermometer stubbornly refuses to climb. It wears on me, but it also brings me a daily lesson, one I especially need right now. Every morning, when I look out the car window at a dreary landscape one more time , my hope is renewed by the knowledge that no matter how harsh, stubborn, severe, or long this winter may be, IT MUST END. It can't last and must give way to spring. Maybe not when I'd like, but spring will still come and nothing can prevent it because that is the covenant God has made with the earth.

So I grit my teeth, raise my chin, and stare down the snow. And I know that just as the seemingly unconquerable winter must surrender to the gentle progression of spring, the problems in my life, the sadness and worry, the broken relationships, must finally disappear. That is the covenant God has made with me and He never breaks a promise.

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Psalm 30:5

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Psalm 126:5,6