Bring the freeze!

How are you doing?

I feel like it has been so long since I was really here just to share what is going on in my heart and mind.

Life has been busy but I think that will change a tad as the cold weather settles in to these mountains.

The word around here is that it is going to be a hard winter.

We have had some major rain this year....even some flooding in the surrounding areas.....and if that trend continues we will be seeing lots of snow.

Of course there have been many groans as people scurry to gather fire wood and fuel....and they hope that maybe someone is wrong and it will be an easy winter....or at least a short one.

Who wouldn't want a winter that had just enough cool for us to get over the heat of summer...but not so much cold and snow that it kept the surrounding areas yucky and us looking outside for the first sign of spring.

Sometimes in my walk with God I have wished for short spiritual winters.

You know...... those times when things are tough and His voice is quieted 

by the things that are falling all around you. 

And I am sure in my heart the groaning came before God something like this.

"O.K God, I know there will be times when I feel locked in and like all around me is dead or dying. I know it has a purpose....to teach me to be more like You. But could you please just make it a quick freeze and then bring back the spring and then the harvest time?"

Can you identify?

Lately I have felt spiritually like those way up north who feel like winter lasts most of the year.

Thought roam through my head like......Will this spiritual winter ever end?

And......He was listening and He sent an answer. 

The other night I was watching a preacher on t.v. and by the time it was over I knew

my time there was God ordained.

We have all heard people talk about seasons.....spring time, summer time and harvest.

.I love harvest time....but I can't stay there all year.

So....this message hit me deep.....right where my pilot light was wavering. ;)

I will try and share with you what God allowed me to hear.

 

One year the winter was especially mild. Everyone was enjoying the fact that they would not have to endure lots of snow and cruel freezing temperatures. One day while he was out the pastor stopped off at a farmer friends to see how he and the farm were doing. In casual chit chat he mentioned how great it was that the winter was almost over and it had been so light.....it was the farmers response that hit the pastor so hard.

Instead of agreeing with the pastors view the farmer explained that the coming season would be extremely hard. Hard because normally when the temperatures got down below freezing and stayed there for a certain length of time......all the larvae and bugs in the ground died. But since they had not gotten those types of tempetures............the bugs would really cause havoc with the crops that would come.

And because of that......harvest would be sparse.

 

God used this information in a powerful way in the life of the pastor.

Many times God takes us into the winter in our spiritual life. He allows circumstances and events to come that have the potential to kill the things in our lives that will seek to kill and destroy the harvest that is to come.

When things get really hard and isolation comes we begin to feel that the events will kill us. But what God sees is that when His work has had its perfect work....all kinds of "bugs" in our lives will be dead.

I know that lately I have inwardly screamed at God.....WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!?!

I have looked at life and thought it could not possibly get any worse.....and then 

something else would happen. And I knew God was showing me just what strength He had already placed deep inside my soul and spirit.....not that that made it less bothersome. :) 

Meanwhile......what is dying in me? 

Is it my love for Christ.....or the part in me

that does not look and act like Him.

I refuse to have gone through all I have been through and let one of those

"bugs" escape to rear its ugly head in the "spring".

Guess it is time to thank God for a long hard winter....both spiritually and physically!

(our first snow up on the mountain)

Puts a little different perspective on winter don't ya think?