Cold and beautiful!

I love looking at the snow as it falls and covers the world with a white blanket.  It is beautiful.  However I would much rather view it from inside a warm house.  I’m known for taking a blanket with me when I do venture out.  If I could, I would walk around every single store I went into with it wrapped around me.  I don’t care who would look at me, hey at least I’m warm.  By the way, I have done that in Frankenmuth when our family takes our annual day after Thanksgiving trip.  I walk the streets wrapped up in my blanket and YES I do walk into the stores with it on.  My body screams at me when I expose it to the cold wind and bitter temperatures.  It lets me know that it is not happy at all with my choice of leaving the warm house. 

So with that all being said this just might shock you.  This winter I went outside and sat on my porch swing not once, but twice.  YEP, twice!  Once during a snow storm and the other time being last night.  I take my two blankets out with me and my fleece sleeping bag.  I crawl into my sleeping back and then wrap the remaining two blankets up and around me.  I sit there and swing for a few minutes till the cold breeze caused from moving back and forth gets a little too cold on my cheeks.   I then stop and just sit there listening and watching.  What am I listening to?  NOTHING!  It is always really nice to sit on my porch swing in the warmer season.  You get to hear all the wonderful things that come alive with the warm weather.  But when it’s cold out and snow is covering everything, there is a stillness.   A calm.  A serene feeling falls over you.  So as I sat there and tried not to notice the cold I was brought back to the simple things in life.  I get so caught up in not liking the cold that I forget to stop and take time to notice the beauty in the world during this time.  The simple things in life that I tend to move too quickly to notice sometimes.  I think that the world we live in and the beauty that it holds are taken for granted way too often.  It is easy to see and feel the beauty when you are soaking up sunshine, when you’re walking barefoot in the grass, the birds are singing in the trees, when walks can take you into the realm where creatures only trod, and when you can sit by the beach with your toes in the sand watching the waves come in.  It’s the time of coldness that beauty is not as noticeable.  When we rush to our cars or into places as to ward off the coldness.

 

I think that is kind of what we tend to do with our Christian walks as well.  When things are going great and everything seems to be just right, we see the beauty of what God has done and what he has given us.  It is when those rough times come, the 50 miles per hour winds that try to knock us down.  When all around us is pitch black and cold.  I think we tend to cuddle up in our blankets and try to hide out till the sun shines bright again.  I have learned that in those times is when I need to stop, slow down, and see the beauty even more.  The amazing things that God is doing to shelter me from this current storm.  How much he cares to take the time to watch over me, to teach me.  Remember you can’t have a rainbow without the storm.  Something beautiful is happening during that storm but you just won’t be able to see it till the clouds clear.  “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.  I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.  For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:11–13 (NLT)   So take another look at winter and the winters in your life.  Slow down and take time to see the beauty and peace in them.