With winter in full swing, I have been reminded of a poem of sorts that I wrote when I was still in college.  I decided to dig it out, dust it off and share it with all of you.  As always, feel free to share your own thoughts on the matter and I do hope that you find encouragement while reading it.  God bless!

     So the earth once again mourns the death of life and resides itself to a state of desolation and cold.  All becomes quiet and lifeless.  Oddly it seems that in the midst of this state, man is offered a chance to experience a period of tranquility and peace that cannot be so keenly experienced in any other time than this.  He is offered a time to think more clearly and breathe more deeply. 

     Yet, as man slumbers through a long winter’s night, the earth continues to turn and time continues to progress.  A cruelty this may seem to some but a necessary cruelty nonetheless.  For it is this continual turning and continual progression through which man finds himself a crutch by which to struggle his way through what can be the most difficult of seasons.

     However, this season can and does bring a greater sense of spirit and love to all.  Although when the best of mankind is brought, the worst of mankind tends to be brought with it.  But, despite the attempts of the wrongs of man to last forever, they become dominated and overshadowed by the goodness and grace of God, for wrong or evil does have its end just as winter has its end.

     When this end comes, the sound of a sigh of relief can be heard if one is kept still and quiet.  It is on the hinges of this sigh that the promise of new life and growth comes in the season of spring.  This promise of new life and growth is a promise that man clings to with his very soul.  For when this promise reaches the ears of mankind, a smile begins to form on his face.  This smile can only mean one thing – that man has made it…made it through another difficult season.  It was a season of hope and a season of disappointment, a season of laughter and a season of tears, a season of giving and, for some, a season of taking.

     Then, the smile on man’s face drifts away ever so slowly as he realizes that even though spring has made its promises of life and growth, he also realizes that with this life and growth also comes the beginning of the cycle which inevitably ends with a kind of cold and desolation that only winter can bring.

     Until…until that day comes when cold and death and desolation are no longer.  Until that day comes when peace and love and hope remain forever.  Until that day when Christ shall come and rapture his people from the midst of what can seem to be a hell on earth to give them what will be a heaven on earth.  Until that day!