Death is winter.
Cold, hard, gray. Every lovely thing fallen and dry underfoot.
A season of rest-not chosen, unwelcome, resisted.
But rest just the same.
Yet the sun still shines and spreads warmth and light on even these bare branches.
Read the rest here:https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/01/30/winter-sunrise/
I learned early on to make do on less sleep than I really need.
Four children in six years will do that to you.
It’s not that I have a physical need for sleep these days-although there are many nights when sleep eludes me.
It’s more that I am soul weary.
Worn down in ways that sleep won’t touch. Frayed and frazzled and falling down tired.
I wake up hopeful every morning. “Today is going to be a productive, encouraging day!”
Sometimes I make it as far as lunchtime before fatigue sets in and overwhelms my good intentions.
I wish it were just a matter of extra shut eye! I wish I could crawl up in the bed for 24 hours and wake refreshed, renewed and ready to go.
But I can’t.
Sleep won’t fix what’s wrong with me.
It can help.
If I’m physically drained in addition to emotionally exhausted then that’s never a good thing. My fuse is shorter by the minute when my body is crying for rest.
Lack of sunlight, gray days and added stress from holiday preparations and obligations deepens the weariness in my bones. I feel guilty sometimes because I know my life is still full of many blessings. I really, truly do NOT take them for granted. (How could I when I know how quickly and unexpectedly they can be gone?)
Still, all the blessings in the world can’t undo this exhaustion.
I’m well aware that discouragement begets discouragement and try so very hard to strive against it. But in the end, I’m not sure I’m successful.
When I say to someone, “I’m so very tired!” they nearly always suggest a nap. Trust me, if a nap would erase this soul weariness, I’d take one every single day.
But it doesn’t, so I don’t.
Instead I go outside and breathe some fresh air, make a cup of hot tea and sit down with a good book, or just sit down and watch the Christmas lights or a candle with my cat in my lap.
That seems to help.
It resets my focus and refuels my soul.
Night closes in and I find I’ve made it through another day. <3
The sun rises behind bare branches and they look beautiful.
In just the right light and at the perfect angle, anything can be lovely.
It’s true that every living thing needs rest. Every working part must be oiled.
And while winter can be hard and heartless and cold and cruel, it is also space and time for re-creation.
If I only look harder I can already see tiny buds of springtime promise on the tips of branches overhead.
Death is winter.
Cold, hard, gray. Every lovely thing fallen and dry underfoot.
A season of rest-not chosen, unwelcome, resisted.
But rest just the same.
Yet the sun still shines and spreads warmth and light on even these bare branches.
After such a long time can the sap still rise?
Is there life left here?
Will spring come again and flowers bloom?
I’m counting on it.
It will all happen so fast, in a blink, a mere flutter of the eye. The last trumpet will call, and the dead will be raised from their graves with a body that does not, cannot decay. All of us will be changed! We’ll step out of our mortal clothes and slide into immortal bodies, replacing everything that is subject to death with eternal life. And, when we are all redressed with bodies that do not, cannot decay, when we put immortality over our mortal frames, then it will be as Scripture says:
Life everlasting has victoriously swallowed death.
Hey, Death! What happened to your big win?
Hey, Death! What happened to your sting?Sin came into this world, and death’s sting followed. Then sin took aim at the law and gained power over those who follow the law. Thank God, then, for our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, the Liberating King, who brought us victory over the grave.
My dear brothers and sisters, stay firmly planted—be unshakable—do many good works in the name of God, and know that all your labor is not for nothing when it is for God.
I Corinthians 15:52-58 VOICE
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