The snow has been falling gently and steadily for the past two days. It has been one of those magical snows that glistens and shimmers, clinging to branches and creating a winter wonderland. For over 36 hours it snowed without ceasing - keeping an even level of intensity, piling flake on top of lofty flake. It was beautiful. Then this morning, as I greeted the dawn, all was still and quiet, until the sun poked its head through our backyard trees and burst forth into the open sky. It was as if someone turned the lights on all at once, displaying a freshly painted sky of orange-streaked blue. And in my heart there was something fresh - like a candle melting the deep cold of the last few days.
There have been many joys in February, but generally cold is a good way to describe both the month and my posture in it. Hubry has had two different trips away from home - both interviews for future job possibilities - both to places our family could end up moving for the next phase of our life - both places I've never been - and in both cases there's pretty much nothing I can do to prepare for or influence the process. But it's not like I'm just sitting around waiting idly twirling my fingers. No, I have a clear purpose and calling, jobs enough for every moment of the day and more. I have food to prepare, brains to feed, a baby to care for, children to direct - blessings at every turn. And yet, I have been shadowed by cold and grey, missing Hubry, crumbling under my responsibilities, fighting against the anxiety of the unknown...
It is Lent, a season of preparation. For Lent Hubry and I purposed to daily wake before the children. We've been "giving up" sleeping in and "putting on" early morning Scripture reading. It's something we've always applauded in the ideal, but a habit hard to keep with our early morning risers. I'm convinced we need to get our son a cow so he can have something purposeful to do in the pre-6:00 hours, but that's for another time. So we've separated rooms, and now each child has their own space, which is helping us reach our goals. They have to stay in their beds until the clock is yellow (6:45), and then they can tip-toe past Raindrop and into our room. Many mornings now I've heard them awake, quietly in their own rooms, turning pages, quietly waiting. We were in need of healing and a change from our early morning explosion of brother and sister and loud and banging, and so it is a much better way for us all to wake.
It is Lent, a time to focus on repentance. With the early morning Scripture reading has come a sweeter communion with the Father, an answer to prayer. Yet in my mind more time in Scripture should equal happy, bright, and gay, not cold and grey. But as always, there is much weeding to be done, and a lot of sin to be exposed. I guess there is no way to focus on repentance, without first focusing on our sin. We can't turn from our sin without seeing it first. But the light this morning was so bright and cheerful, a hint of what is to come. The point of Lent, after all, is not the preparation or the repentance, but the culmination of Christ's work on the cross. Because we are preparing for something - and that something was a historical event that really happened.
I'm living in a place where the change from season to season is dramatic. I'm processing Easter and it's being linked to Spring in a more vivid way than years past, and I truly think the light has something to do with it. Lent is so fully Winter here (and in Georgia there's not tons of difference between February and March). From what I've heard, Spring officially happens in May in Maine, but as someone said the other day, on April 1st you can start to hope that maybe the Winter is packing it's bags and making room for the Spring. That one word, hope, is what our Easter is all about. The hope of an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. That's a hope worth waiting for.
