The world outside the window of the cabin where I write is bleak right now. Mud, broken branches, stark stillness except where water drips. Gray sky hanging like a shroud over this forest I love. The wall of dense growth that is my neighbor’s backyard seems even more eerie than normal— the stuff of Jurassic Park and nightmares.

Winter holds the Northwest in its relentless grip of gloom.

And sometimes that’s how our days seem. Gray and gloomy with a little haunted fear thrown in. Worry causes perpetual winter in our souls.

The young mother who keeps hearing “these are the best days of your life” while she can hardly get out of bed for another round of what feels like pure drudgery.

The student who can’t take the pressure for one more day and just wants to quit and get a job and live a little. 

The wife who woke up one day and found a frog in bed with her. Where did Prince Charming go?

And so we worry. And fret. And feel forgotten.

Once again we’ve lost hold of the truth that: We are God’s personal concern.

What is God doing in these stark, drippy seasons? When disappointment displaces delight and all I see is what isn’t right or good or… happy.

Where is this One who calls me His personal concern? Has He forgotten? Abandoned me to oblivion?

Back in these magical words of I Peter 3, I find an answer to the questions I’m afraid to ask.

This is what God is up to when all I can hear is that roaring of self and Satan in my soul. Just like those bulbs planted at the end of summer can only bloom in all their beauty after a long season of dormancy. Winter happens and it’s not pretty.

My best hope for getting out of this wintery prison is to turn from that innate tendency to worry and fret and demand my own way. Instead, I have options:

1.    I can choose to humble myself before God

2.    I can purposely remind myself that “all power is His forever and ever.”

3.    I can hang tight to the belief that “after a very little while” is on its way.

And then I can go make a batch of gooey, chocolaty, cookies for someone I know who’s feeling the gloom. Or for that frog who might need a little sweetness to turn back in his prince-ness.

From my heart,

Diane