I want to feel the grass in between my toes and the sting of the sun on my arms. I want to open the door and see wavy lines of heat come off the street in front of my house instead of out my front door. I want to see the curtains on my windows billow into the house and forget that there is such a thing as a heater. I want to sit on my front stoop without any shoes, in blue jeans and a t-shirt. I want to meander out to the mailbox barefoot, drawing out the time. I want to pack away all the coats and gloves and scarves and snowboots and put my sandles by the front the door. I want to watch the sun set later and wake with it already peaking over the tops of the trees.I am tired of being so dang cold. I want Spring.
I used to buy into the idea that if we didn’t have Winter, we wouldn’t appreciate Spring so much. But I’m not so sure anymore. That’s a little like saying if we didn’t have death we wouldn’t appreciate life—or if we didn’t have suffering we wouldn’t appreciate the good times. I don’t think that’s the way it is. I think we were created for life, creating and joy—not death, destruction and suffering.
Not that times of absence, waning, suffering or cold can’t help us remember or call us back to the value of fellowship, abundance, joy and warmth, that tough times can’t be used to make us stronger and more like the people we were created to be. In fact, I think it is one of the marvels in this broken world that God can use what was intended for evil and work good out of it. But I just don’t think we need one to have the other. The world once existed in pure goodness and life and it will again; it’s on its way now. But to say that we must have darkness in order to appreciate light—or even that one can’t exist without the other—just doesn’t sit right with me anymore.
But then I’m exhausted from being so cold. Maybe I’m just a little biased right now.
(Image: Weather.com)