In the Bleak Mid-winter

I honestly have to say, I hate January. All of the excitement of Christmas comes to an end, the weather is dismal and the days are cold and grey. I just feel tired the whole month, like the life is being sucked out of me. Every task that requires me to leave the house is faces with the dread of scraping the car, warming the car, driving in the snow, being stuck in traffic, not to mention the bundling the kids and listening to them whine about how cold it is. I know it is cold, and I want to whine, too!

Even the house loses its brightness, the recovery from the Christmas decorating seems to take forever, nothing seems to be in the right place. There are no sweet smells of cinnamon, just soup and plain warm things. While December is filled with the sound of Christmas music, January is filled with the sound of batteries dying in Christmas toys.

I look at my poor little aloe, shivering on my window ledge, and like the plant long for the warmth of the sun on me, I long for the sweet smell of grass and the shrill sound of frogs in the air. I long for the days that seems to go on forever, and the nights that make you want to never sleep again, for fear you will miss a moment.

Those days are still long off in Chicago. For now, all I can do is escape into a book, or try to make everyone think it is warm with the sweet taste of tropical fruits. It is a good effort, but not the same. Everyone is still grumpy and morose. The darkness still looms at the door and very little can keep it at bay.

Even the prayers of winter seems less joyful, we are in the growing time, the season to learn, but long before any growth can take place, the ground has to be prepared. The snow has to melt. The bitter cold sometimes mirrors the bitterness of our hearts. The ecstasy of Christmas leaves us behind as we trudge back into the routine of our daily work, and forget the small babe in the manger, for he is much harder to love when he is dirty and tired from his time with the fishermen. His work is our work, and is not a work of gratification, but a work of great love. In the cold, in the grey, will we be able to fish? Will we be able to shine, even in the darkness of winter, when we feel the darkness ourselves.