the winter of my faith

I'm sitting in my kitchen early this morning.  It is currently 4 degrees outside, and for the past two days I've stayed home, bundled up inside due to the snow storm "Hercules" that brought Connecticut a fresh foot of snow. 

To me, snow is nice for a few hours, and after that I'm done with it. Then, you try to go outside and realize you should have warmed up your car before you had to leave.  You wear layers, and always wish your winter jacket was a little bit warmer and a little bit more fashionable.  Last night, I couldn't sleep because I kept debating whether I should get up to get gloves to keep my fingers warm. The roads are icy and dangerous. The once magical snowfall that brought joy to children because of cancelled classes, is now filthy and slushy from finally being plowed. 

I'm not a huge fan of winter.

Sure, I love Christmas and scarves and hot coffee.  But this winter, I'm reminded so much more of why it is the most difficult and hard season.

For the past 6 months I've been going through a season in my faith that I have been calling "winter." 

I've been calling it winter because, like the weather season we're in now, things have gotten dark in my faith, my heart seems cold towards His word, and things that used to be exciting and lively are now dead.  God seems absent, just like the warmth of the weather outside. 

This season is full of testing and difficulty.  God is the only one who can help me endure through it, but He seems like the hardest one to talk to.

The winter of my faith has been marked by feelings of discouragement, absence, and cold-heartedness.  

Winter is the season where God tests you in order to make your faith stronger and to draw you closer to Him, but you just can't understand why it's so hard.

If you've been a Christian for some time, you either have gone through a season that is like this, or you will go through it if you haven't already. I have gone through a period in my faith like this multiple times before, however this time has seemed like the longest and most difficult one. 

Source: pivotcon.com

We will all endure through seasons of winter.  Its a part of life, and God definitely uses hard and difficult seasons to actually draw you closer to Him. You don't have to be ashamed of feeling distant from God, or for enduring trials that make it hard to feel God's joy.  The Bible even shares stories about people who go through a wintery season in their life.  Lamentations 3:16-18:

He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”

Teeth grinding, ashes, lack of peace, and forgetting happiness. I don't think it can get much worse than that.  Almost every person spoken about in the Bible has gone through a period of trials.  Ever read the book of Psalms? Its filled with honest prayers that express the difficulty of a dry season, where God seems hard to reach.  Even Jesus questioned, "God, why have you forsaken me?"

But as I reflect on this season, I'm reminded that the winter can still be beautiful. Winter is beautiful because of what comes when winter is over: Spring.

Spring. New life. A fresh start. Resurrection.  Death is overcome, and life begins again.

And just a few sentences after the words about teeth grinding and endurance perishing, Lamentations 3:21-23 brings some of the most encouraging and hopeful words I have ever heard:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Spring is the new mercies coming in the morning. Spring comes when your faith is revived, and you suddenly realize that winter had to be endured for spring to be so sweet. 

My spring hasn't come yet.  I pray for it to come daily.  But, even though this winter seems to be one of the hardest seasons I've gone through and it has seemed like it is never going to end, the truth is that spring is coming.

And spring is worth the wait of a long, dreary, cold, dead winter. 

Source: http://blessedmama-wouldntchangeathing.blogspot.com/2013/01/never-cut-tree-down-in-wintertime.html


*Disclaimer: The idea of "seasons" and "winter" was from an incredible sermon by Miles Welch.  He preached a 5 week series called "Seasons of the Soul," which is available for free from 12 Stone Church on iTunes.   This ideas in this post are not originally my own, but have been adapted from his teaching.