Winter comes and lets us play with the changing scenes around us. I awaken to one morning with bright sunlight cutting through the slotted shades demanding I catch the happiness of dancing lights across my living room. The next day arrives with an overcasting presence as the steady dripping of rain leaves streaks upon my window panes and my soul. Sometimes, the barren lawn wears the ragged garments of yesterday’s spring time and sometimes, all the world seems bathed in white as snow covers the disheveled signs of a dying landscape beneath its soft wet blanket. Then, the winds howl and thoughts of firesides and home faces arise in the quiet halls of my mind.

In winter we need to give credence to the part of nature that has the curious power to alter us with its variable suggestions of the shifting moods of human life. We can be controlled by the forces which play silently around us in our sphere of living. Our option is to choose to live beyond the moment. To have within us an unwavering joy that abides in the Lord, who rules the winds and the waves. To rest in the sacramental wonder of an unchanging God in every season of our life. Let his countenance be the face of the morning as spring begins.

Rev.Richardson (ret.)