winter won't last forever.

This day came with a vengeance, the wind's icy fingers creeping underneath my hat and inside my boots and, it seems, into my very soul. Snow fell fast overnight, weighing bare branches low and enveloping the city in a wintry quiet. The summer's warmth has long gone, and in its absence has settled a longing for those tell-tale signs of springtime - birds chirping, snows melting, magnolias blooming - that shout of new life.

I'm grateful to live in a place where I have the opportunity to witness such a dramatic change of seasons. There's something to be said for living in much milder climates - there's certainly part of me that misses those 70* January days - but this very stark shift in my external environment directs my thoughts to the inner life, too, and for this I'm thankful.

Christian theology teaches that we come into the world spiritually dead, a condition inherited from our first parents, and find life only in the Savior and Son, Jesus. I believe this to be true, and see echoes of this concept of death-to-life scattered throughout the human experience. The deadness of winter is one such echo, serving as a reminder of the coldness of our hearts before being lit by the Spirit's flame.

I've been day-dreaming of summer - spending lazy days reading in Harvard Yard or concert-going at the Hatch Shell or eating popsicles on the front stoop in a tank top and shorts. These days, I stay indoors much more than I'd like - but the promise of April beckons, and I remember that the world won't be frozen indefinitely. Likewise, when I walk through the winters of life and my spirit grows cold, I remember that it, too, will not be frozen forever. I hope in Jesus, whose resurrection from death-to-life inaugurated the coming of the Kingdom - God's new way of life - in our present world. Because of his grace, this redemptive work has extended to people like us, waking us from our slumber to the glorious life that is at hand. Thanks be to God!