Uncomfortable

I am so much less "comfortable" in the winter.







The water has to run longer while I wait for my shower to warm up. I shiver until the van heats up and between us ladies, I've been known to wear a wool cap to bed. (Stacy and Clinton would be appalled, I assure you, but on some nights it's necessary.) I'm a vitamin D kind of gal. I LOVE the sunshine and in the winter she deliberately seems to hide as if she is purposefully hibernating.

To be honest, I'm just not as "comfortable" in the winter.

I've spent my share of winters up north, way up north. I know that winter is not always comfortable, and yet it's often in winter where unknown treasures lie and only in "uncomfortable" circumstances, when all is stripped away, can they be revealed.

I was reminded of this just the other day. As we were traveling on a country road that I've driven a number of times, I noticed out my window a lake. A lake that had revealed itself through the naked trees. A lake that I'd never noticed before. A gorgeous lake.

Isn't that just like winter?

Just like winter to reveal something hidden; something that's always been there, just hidden behind the layers that camouflage.

Isn't that just like God?

He has done it a number of times in my own life. Used an uncomfortable "winter season" of my life to reveal something that was there all along, but hidden. Hidden away, waiting for the Lord to strip away the layers that camouflage to reveal what He needed to expose. My winter.

I don't know about you, but I often exist selfishly, seeking comfortable circumstances.

Thankfully there are times that God says, "no," or "not now." I move into my own spiritual winter. It's a bitter cold season of life where comforts cease to exist. It's clearly not comfortable. It's not meant to be. It's often downright painful, and if you are like me, you try to resist it. You try to ignore it, or run the other direction, or pull the hat over your eyes, but He won't let you. You see there is so much to be revealed in these times.

Just as it's comforting to know without a doubt that winter inevitably moves into spring, my spirit is comforted by these words,

"Be truly glad!" There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for awhile. These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold....So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus is revealed to the whole world."
1 Peter 1:6-7

Learning to embrace the uncomfortable, to expose what has been camouflaged for far too long. Now that's something to think about.







Join Lori daily at her personal website,all you have to give, where she is learning to embrace winter in all forms!