Cold Enough For You?

The tempest comes out from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds. The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen.   Job 37:9-10

I paused for a moment, mittened hands resting on the stem of the shovel, listening.

The trees across the road wailed and moaned as they swayed in restless agitation. Above me the air sang in full-throated three-part dissonance. Pellet snowflakes beat against the back of my hood, tip-tapping in desperate syncopation, begging to get in and warm themselves in my hair.

The weather app on my handy-dandy phone said it was four degrees, with a wind chill of negative eleven.

It was magnificent.

I suppose that after twenty Michigan winters I may be seeing things a little differently. But I’m new here. To this great-plains Illinois girl, a northern winter is pure magic.

My daily walks with the dog take me into the winter woods.  Ice-cold air fills my lungs with crispness as I tromp along snowshoe-packed paths, mouth agape at the beauty of snow-heavy branches. The soft white undercarpet is criss-crossed with the prints of little and big animal feet, leading off enticingly into the trees.

And then there’s the lake. If you have seen it your whole life you may not notice this, but….it freezes over!!! The whole lake!!! Well, not the whole thing, I guess, but as far as the eye can see. To a non-great-lakes native, that’s utterly astounding. I could look at it for hours, my eyes tracing the cones and ridges and lighting up with sparkles at the sight of blue ice.

As February gets underway, there is the temptation to wish winter away and hurry toward spring. Sure. Winter can be cold. But there is so much about it that is good.

The kids stumping up the mountain ranges in front of the house, tumbling into their sleds and zooming down the small hills and across the icy driveway.

The five robins – five!! robins!!! – that were playing in the tree over my head yesterday.

New white snow tingling on your nose and dissolving on your tongue like cotton candy. The fffwip, fffwip of snow pants.

Skeletons of trees, and the texture of bark. The smell of the neighbor’s wood stove. Diamonds in wind-sculpted snow.

The nearer nearness of stars. The one thirty a.m. blast of cold when you take the dog out to go potty; being able to crawl back under the covers.

Muscle memory returning after a few turns around the skating rink, and the pleasurable realization that you still remember something that was important to you back in those days when you were young.

Absolute quiet suddenly and joyously filled by the giggle of a chickadee.

My dog bounding exuberantly through the snowdrifts. Shadows that stretch for miles. Deer flitting between trees.

The unspeakable satisfaction of kicking a clump of snow out of your wheel well. Brushing the snow off of a stranger’s windshield.

A scarf full of warm breath. The sound of boots stomping in the entryway. Spoons clinking against mugs full of hot cocoa and marshmallows.

Oh, winter, winter. You are such a gift.

Our creator has given us a world full of good, good things. They are gifts, every one of them.

But sometimes…

We miss His gifts sometimes. We see only that it’s cold out – the kind of cold that chills us from the inside. Our heart-hurts and our roadblocks fill our eyes and blind us to the beauty and joy which our Heavenly Father lays before us each day. Frozen in the midst of a tempest, we can only say, “Ah, but I’m cold….I’m so cold.”

But the gifts are still there. Our loving Father holds out the world He has made, the life He has given us, and says, “Take a look. See what I have done because I love you?” And then He takes us to a hill and shows us His greatest gift. He points up, up to the heart of Someone who cares about us enough to come out into the cold to get us. The gentle warmth of His Son melts the ice around our heart and lets in the light until we can once again see diamonds in the snow and hear ourselves breathe in the still, crisp air.

Winter. Gift after gift. God grant that my eyes may remain open to all the good that He has given me.

And God grant, when my neighbor is standing out in the cold, that I might be the one to bring him a blanket.

First published in The Alpena News, February 8, 2014