Through Winter Eyes



If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or if you have known me for very long at all, one thing you know for sure is that I love winter!  As long as I can remember I have loved winter.  I have fond memories of snow forts and sledding.  I had dreams of becoming a figure skater or an olympic skier.  Having grown up in rural Iowa, it wasn't likely that I would become either.

Through the years people have said that as I get older I will come to hate winter just like the rest of the world.  I haven't found that to be true.  If anything, my fondness for the snow and bone chilling cold only grows stronger with time. Why winter?  Why not spring, or fall or the warm summer sun? Why am I drawn to the coldest, bleakest time of year?  Would you consider seeing life through winter eyes?  It is my winter eyes that help me to see more than a simple changing of nature's seasons.

I have had experiences that have taken me full circle in what I have come to know as the seasons of life.  I have felt the warmth of love so much that it overwhelmed me and caused me to step aside for a time. I have seen new life in all of creation; from flowers to puppies and watching a colt rise from the ground to take its first steps. I have felt the summer sun in laughter and I have stood in awe holding a tiny baby,  living breathing spring time in my very arms.  I have also held the hand of sorrow; sorrow so deep that everything around me seemed gray.  Those times are the autumn of my soul; a time when colors slowly fade until one morning I wake up to a cold gray world.  Soon the snow comes in gentleness and lays a blanket over me to hold me and to keep me still.  While I stay in the arms of winter's beauty my heart begins to warm and slowly the snow   begins to melt.  Just as the ground softens in the spring to accept the nourishment of the winter snows, so does my heart soften to receive its gift.  I need a blanket of the gentle snow to hold me until I am ready to know the joy of spring and the new life that comes with it. I want to be ready to greet the summer sun with the laughter of a child at play.

Maybe I'm crazy for loving winter, or maybe I have winter eyes that see something far deeper than a snow drift.  :o)

Blessings to you as you read and by all means, bundle up!  It's cold out there!

Amy

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