There’s no light quite like winter’s. When all the world is swathed in white and the sun beats down from the open sky, setting the snow alight. Even at dawn’s first flush, everything glows—the ground, the roof, the hoods of our trucks and the mesh of our trampolines.
It seems so wrong. How could our neck of the woods, with its dozens of downed trees and piles of limbs, with its scraggly, dying vegetation, with its washed-out dirt roads and ditches, look so beautiful?
Because even in the bleakest of winters, there’s light and life. There’s hope and beauty.
Even in the warm, swampy south, there’s snow.
It seems silly to wax poetic about something so simple and so commonplace to a lot of people. But the county I live in has seen snow four times in the last 40+ years. When we got a record-breaking (maybe more like record-making in this case) snowfall of five inches in a night this past week, folks both young and old awoke with joy and wonder to a winter wonderland outside. To some, maybe to you, snow angels and snowball fights are old and tired, and snow is begrudgingly received multiple times a year. But down here, many people, like my youngest siblings, were seeing and experiencing snow for the first time. Building their first snowman. Throwing their first snowball.
It was so exhilarating and new and beautiful.
It kind of reminds me of being a new Christian. Truly seeing and experiencing God in your life for the first time. Something so familiar, so normal to me—who’s been saved since before I can remember—is like a brand new world to someone else.
This Sunday, we listened to my uncle give his testimony at a nearby church. He’ll be the first to tell you that his story is nothing special—it’s like so many others’, perhaps even yours. But to hear someone you’ve known all your life, someone you’ve seen at their good moments and their bad ones, testify to the grace of God and make the profession you’ve waited years for…it’s powerful. Just as much so as any other testimony, regardless of the circumstances.
My uncle’s only been saved a little over a year, which is a like a moment up against the forty-eight years he lived without Christ. To him, it’s snow for the first time. It’s bright and blinding and it transforms the world around him from bleak to beautiful. It’s exciting and new and uncharted. He’s doing and saying and becoming things he never had before.
I sat there on Sunday hearing the same old scriptures and phrases I’ve heard a million times before—God’s good, He loves us, He forgives us, He makes us new. I’m used to these truths. Everyone in that church was no doubt used to those truths. They prayed them as the service ended like they lived on their lips.
But as my uncle said them, marveling in the lovingkindness of God, the phrases sounded different. They came out slowly, impassioned, as if they streamed out from his heart and not just his lips. Standing amidst the freshly-fallen, glittering snow of new life in Christ, he wasn’t used to the truths of God. He was living in them, tasting them, believing them, holding them close and shouting them from the rooftops at the same time because he had just seen the great light of Jesus in the middle of his bleakest winter.
You may be in the bleak midwinter now—but there’s no light greater than winter’s light when Christ comes in, newborn and bright. Snow is on its way, my friend. Grace is there before you, arms as wide as the open sky.
You may be like us singing the same old hymns and praying the same old prayers in that church on Sunday—where it seems to be always winter, always white and cold, but never Christmas, where your heart feels like ice and you’re just waiting for it to thaw. Or where you simply don’t feel that same exhilaration and joy as a new believer does, where the truths of God have been repeated so many times you don’t even fully know what they mean.
If you feel frozen-over today, or if you’ve felt that way for a while now, may this be a reminder that there are no fully-grown Christians or old and wizened believers. We’re all still growing and changing and being molded by God. We’re all still walking this road of sanctification. You may have been on this journey for a long time, but there’s still light up ahead. There’s still joy to be found and hope to be had. You may just need to stop going through the motions and smell the flowers. Let God carry you partway. Share in the joy of new converts or other believers experiencing breakthroughs. Find a way to grow as a Christian and in your intimacy with God (trust me, there’s always room for improvement).
My prayers are with you, no matter where you are in this journey or what season you’re in. May you see where God has guided you thus far and may you experience Him in greater clarity, in Technicolor, from here on out.
In the bleak midwinter
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone:
snow had fallen,
snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
long ago.
Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
nor earth sustain;
heaven and earth shall flee away
when he comes to reign:
in the bleak midwinter
a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
Enough for him whom cherubim
worship night and day,
a breastful of milk
and a mangerful of hay:
enough for him
whom angels fall down before,
the ox and ass and camel
which adore.
Angels and archangels
may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim
thronged the air,
but only his mother,
in her maiden bliss,
worshiped the Beloved
with a kiss.
What can I give him,
poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb,
if I were a wise man
I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him,
give my heart.
“In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti, c. 1872
I hope you all had a wonderful Advent and Christmas season and New Year's and Epiphany and whatever else I've missed this winter! 🤭 The last couple months have been as hectic (in both its modern and archaic sense) as the months before were crazy. I'm not expecting the rest of 2025 to be much different, but maybe the year will surprise me.
If any of y'all are struggling in any area of your walk right now, I'd love to know how I can pray for and encourage you during this season! If you're looking for ways to grow and move forward, please feel free to reply and we can chat. I'm hoping to put out a blog post on the topic soon, but it's even better to discuss it one-on-one.
I pray this winter is one of wonder, of rest and preparation for a bountiful, blossoming spring. May you find joy in Christ and happiness in whatever this season throws your way!
