When Winter Outstays Its Welcome

for those who are sick of suffering

Winter in New England is idyllic. The world I live in is reminiscent of L.L.Bean magazines and Robert Frost poems. November enters quietly with early morning frosts and snow flurries. December settles in comfortably with a white blanket on the cold earth, usually just in time for Christmas. January’s piercing blue skies make our northern snow globe sparkle. It’s pure magic.

The baby versions of my sister Allie and me enjoying winter!

But then February and March show up, and everyone is done with the snow turning brown on the corners of the road. The charm has worn off — we are tired of shoveling. Winter outstays its welcome . . . and we get antsy for warmer weather.

Almost six years ago, a white blanket of winter settled over my life. A chronic illness I’d battled for years avalanched into symptoms worse than I’d dreamed — and I was buried. I found myself shoveling an insurmountable world of snow, with nowhere to put it and no end in sight. As I looked around at my new reality, iced in by limitations that took away life as I knew it, I felt the pain. But I also felt the Holy Spirit near to me, a “very present help in trouble.”

Suffering is never idyllic, but the snow in that season of life still sparkled. God showed me how he flipped my suffering and used it for good. He used it in my friends’ lives as they watched my world crumble and wondered where my hope was. The spiritual conversations with classmates — and even strangers — were new and exciting as I pointed to Christ’s beautiful gospel. God sanctified me, pulling out sin tendencies and idols that we needed to burn.

He softened and sharpened me. He proved to me over and over that He could be trusted. He used my suffering to change my career path, inviting me into a ministry that fit the contours of my heart better than any of my prior plans. I was snowed in, but I could see the beauty of the storm. It held its magic. That was my November, December, and January . . . but it’s been five and a half years.

“God has taught me so much,” I told my pastor. “But I’m ready to move on.”

I want to drive long distances with ease again, have full days without resting, and be able to start a family. There are dreams unfulfilled that I’m reaching out for. I’m longing for warmer weather, normalcy, and healing. I am in March, shoveling dirty snow, and I just want to put down the shovel.

Perhaps you are in a season where suffering clings close, falling thick and fast like flurrying flakes. Perhaps you’ve been caught in an avalanche or ice storm. Are you in your November, just beginning to feel the earth harden? Are you in your December or January, shivering in the sea of snow but still seeing the sparkle? Or, like me, are you in the months that you expected to be spring, cursing the muddy snow that mucks up your life?

This is the first part of my article for (in)courage titled, “When Winter Outstays Its Welcome.” You can read the rest here.

via Unsplash

Thank you for supporting my writing, again and again. I’m so grateful.

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Resource Review: ESV Bible Promises: 700 Passages to Strengthen Your Faith from Crossway

This beautiful little book came to me on a less-than-ideal health week. The providence and kindness of God? Yes.

This book of verses houses topics from Anxiety to Worship, Assurance to Work. I’m obviously not reviewing the Scripture—we already know that’s perfect. But the design of the book is lovely too. It’s small enough to keep handy anywhere. It’s pretty.

Just to be clear, not all the verses included are necessarily “promises.” Some are commands, some are bits of parables, and some are descriptions, like that of a psalmist’s faith. But it’s a wonderful little resource housing 150 topics, and I love it. What a blessing Scripture is! God is so kind to give it to us.

Thanks to Crossway for sending me a free copy in exchange for an honest review!