The Clouds of Winter

Just one more day and spring will break forth.  The cold, snow, wind, sleet, and clouds of winter will pass away and we will again bask in nature’s grand renewal of things and life.  I look forward to spring.  In recent days I’ve walked about in the back lawn to assure myself that it is really coming by checking out the hyacinths and daffodils that are even now poking up through the still cold ground.  

Our eagerness and longing for spring, however, can cause us to miss the closing days of winter—for winter holds mysteries of its own if we are open to those mysteries and look carefully enough.

“Human life,” wrote E. Herman, “is as a cloudy day.  It has no sky so bright but that a little cloud like a man’s hand appears on the far horizon.  Ere we know it, the blue has turned to grey, and still the clouds roll on, driven by bleak, unfriendly winds.  Disappointment, perplexity, loss, bereavement, and, worse than all, spiritual despondency—times when life seems a cruel riddle, and the soul is darkened with doubt—are as common as clouds in a northern sky.”  

Such clouds are so common that we cease to struggle against them and say to ourselves, “Wait, there is nothing to do but wait.  Wait till the clouds go by, wait patiently, until winter is done and spring arrives.”  This attitude suggests that in the darkness of winter there is only the promise of spring—and it seems to say that the only thing we can do is wait despondently while the clouds of winter hover over us.  

Scripture tells us in that ancient story of the Exodus, that God “led them with a cloud.”  Do we consider that possibility as we live through these last days of winter?  Is it possible that in the midst of winter, through the boredom and cabin-fever, through the dullness, the grey days, in the cold and snow of the season, we are being led?

The Psalmist wrote, “Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress”—made me a better person—not after the winter (the distress) has passed, but in the midst of it. I think of Jacob’s dream experience as told in Genesis (28:10ff).  He awoke from his powerful dream and said, “Truly the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”  He named that place “Beth-El” (God’s place).  Winter is God’s place, too.  It is not just a time where all we can do is wait for spring. It is, rather, a Beth-El, a place where God is and can lead us, guide us, and cause us to grow.  He leads us with clouds too.  As God led the Hebrew people with a cloud, so winter clouds can guide us.  “Truly God is in this place (too) and I did not know it.”