Do you ever find yourself feeling frozen inside?
Resembling a forgotten watering can left outside, forgotten in the corner of summer's lush garden gone barren and brown?
Like winter has invaded, freezing out hope and leaving behind a world steeped in chill gray?
I haven't spoken normally for six long months.
These months of forced silence have been drab in some ways, cold and isolated.
But when you look closer at a garden or a life, the frozen times are full of life laying dormant...
the seeds of beautiful things to come.
If we look closer, even in the frost, the seeds are waiting.
For a plant to grow, the seeds have to fall into the ground and wait in the dark.
For a life to grow, sometimes the seeds of faith are watered with tears, laying dormant for a season.
What looks hopelessly dead today will spring to life.
So it is with hope.
It's normal to want to skip over the hardships...
to wish life were always summer, always easy...
but the frost has a beauty all its own
and hearts that persevere through the wintery chill of difficulty have their roots sunk deep into faith and gratitude and compassion.
Even while the frost is thick
and life feels so frozen,
there is the knowledge...
the rock solid, absolute faith,
the confidence of good things preparing to burst forth.
But meanwhile,
there is beauty in winter, too.
In waiting.
In sure and quiet hope.
