WINTER

Last year as winter set in, it reigned in my soul. This year, I find I am free. You would think I would be happy, and I am. But in a way I am not. Below is a small portion of how I felt last year.

I am in winter.

Winter’s in the air. Winter’s in my soul.

In past years I have heard the words of Silent Night or Little Town of Bethlehem and cannot stop the tears. This season I hear them and their warming rays are not able to penetrate my frozen and cold heart.

I am in Winter. Cold blasts surround me and keep my heart frozen. Music, the kindness of friends and the beauty of God’s earth are streams of heat, but they too aren’t able to melt the ice encircling my heart.

An arctic blast of cold, troubles, only add to the fortress that makes my heart impenetrable.

The only One who can melt this heart of mine is with me and has told me in time I will feel again. Just not today. We walk this road together. I am assured that He is with me. I do not feel Him, but I know He is there. He is my Comfort and my Strength.

This peculiar heart of mine does not act like a normal heart. I can see a leaf caught on a breeze fall slowly to the earth and bawl like a baby. I can hear of a child who lost his battle with pneumonia and not shed a tear. I am in unfamiliar territory.

My God has walked this road. He is guiding me. I must trust for I can no longer see the path. I have heard of people that never quite recover from a freeze. I wonder if I am one of them. Every month as the date of the day of loss comes, tears follow me everywhere I go. Sobs catch in my throat and my shoulders shake with the burden of, “it’s never going to be the same.”

But when that day ends, I am frozen once again. Like an addict, I don’t want to recover. I cringe for the day when I no longer weep. I do not want these days to end as well as I can’t allow them to remain. I am caught in Winter.  

  

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. John 4:24

Each New Year

Every January as I turn the calendar to the New Year I have a longing to work on my Colorado Book. A novel that is in disarray. When I start to read the beginning chapters I say to myself, "This isn't so bad." I enjoy it, I think I might actually be a great writer." (Notice I say great right off the bat, and not good.)  

Then it gets a little rocky as I head into the 3rd, 4th and 5th chapters. I wade through the next few chapters trying to salvage pieces and knowing there is still a small bit of potential. By the eighth chapter, I realize there are so many varying plots and cheesy characters that the whole thing needs a rewrite. But now I am in March, I suddenly stop. I need to start planting an indoor garden that will bloom and thrive, so that in May I am ready to plant the outside flower and vegetable gardens. 

I look at my notes and the a revised outline and get weary. Soon somehow those pages get lost in piles of other papers as summer hits. They collect dust. 

In August,  I think, "Hey, wasn't I working on that old book." I dig through piles until I find it. I say to myself, "This is the year. No excuses."

 But the cold blows the long summer days away and as the days shorten, I realize, I need to start working on Christmas.   

Before I know it, the year is gone, and the same longing to work on my Colorado Book permeates. 

I hate to say it, but I feel it right now, deep in my bones. That book has been a good friend to me. Maybe that is what I miss  . . . that friendship. There were many friends, daughters and sisters that helped me with that book. Giving their comments and advice. 

Maybe it isn't the characters in that book at all that draws me to work on it. Maybe it's the closeness of the people that used to corroborate with me on it. Maybe it is those friendships that have changed that I miss. Maybe I think of them with a longing of  the past. Opening the Colorado book is like opening back that period in time when family and friends were very close to me.  

For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. My heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food. Psalm 101:3-4