Winter

In many parts of the U.S., there is snow, ice, sleet, freezing rain, and all around yucky weather.  The sky is gray and the ground is hard.  I'm ready for warmer weather, buds sprouting, and sun.  Of course, we have to go through the winter to get to the spring.

As much as I want to hurry through the cold, I am reminded of words of wisdom my mother would say when I would wish something would come to pass, "Quit wishing your life away."  I did not fully appreciate this as I do now that I am older.  My children have been born, were children, teens, and are now young adults.  I have aged -- some days more gracefully than others.  I have learned, and soon I will be graduating--again.  But it isn't always just education from books and school, I have life experience as well.  I hope this all means that I have a certain amount of wisdom. 

Life is meant to be lived, one day at a time.  We should enjoy or at least experience life every day.  The ups and downs are what make us who we are, and learning from these things is what gives us life experience, wisdom.  At times we would like to avoid the pain, but it is the winter that makes me appreciate the warmth of the sun that much more.  We appreciate the ups in our life, because of the down times. 

Romans 5:3-5.  "And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."