Winter: Is there any good in this most difficult season?

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” 

—Genesis 8:22

Gray skies cast its gloom over me and frigid temperatures kept me captive inside my own home. The landscape, dead and devoid of any color except brown, caused me to question why anyone would like winter. Certainly I didn’t, and recently I had made that known to anyone who would listen, declaring that if I could I would retreat to warmer climates during the dreaded season.

My attitude had been poor since I threw over the page of my perpetual calendar on December 31^st and read the familiar verse, which quoted the very words of God Himself: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Genesis 8:22).

I focused on the words “cold” and “winter” and groaned at the reminder. I knew it meant I had to endure the long stretch of months, holed up inside my four walls, with little evidence of life beyond. Nothing growing in the surrounding fields or flowerbeds, nothing green except the algae growing on my siding.

With all this negativity, I had to give this matter pause. God said as long as the earth remains, we will have seasons. That will not change. And as long as I remain on this earth, I will have to endure winter (if I can’t escape to Florida). To make the experience more palatable, even positive, I decided I needed to change. So, I prayed, Lord, if everything You make is good (1 Timothy 4:4), that must mean that winter is good. Help me to see the good in winter. I am keeping my eyes wide-open.

Meanwhile, I began to think beyond the seasons of the earth and pondered the seasons of our lives. The exhausting age of parenting an infant. The trying times with teens. The loneliness of the empty nest. The times when life lands us a cold, hard blow. The breakup of a relationship, the loss of a loved one, or the battle with health issues. How do we respond? Just as negatively as I respond to winter? Even more so? Can there be any good in these seasons?

While God does not create these difficult times, He does allow them. And if that is the case, it is because He will bring forth something good from it (Romans 8:28). Although, in the midst of it, we may struggle to see it. We may even doubt God’s goodness and turn away from Him.

But God is still good, and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations (Psalm 100:5). He always has our best interest at heart.

So how do we endure these hard seasons? How do we find the good?

There may be a clue in my own words. When we are holed up inside, whether within our home or within ourselves, we need to do what the farmers do in winter. When there are no crops to plant or harvest, they turn their attention to repairs. They mend broken fences and fix broken equipment. I call it fence & fix. That’s the notation I included on the January page of our family farm calendar I created, right below the photo of the iced-over pond and the caption “New Beginnings.”

Maybe January (and the rest of winter) is a good time to fence ourselves in with God, to curl up into His loving arms and pour our hearts out, bringing Him all our broken pieces and trusting Him to fix it (Psalm 34:18, Psalm 62:8, Psalm 139:23-24). He will not fail us. He is “the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

Maybe winter is also a good time to read a good book. Some farmers and gardeners brighten their dreary winter days by browsing seed catalogs and dreaming about spring. What if we dug deep into God’s Word and collected seeds of promise—those that assured us of His presence (Matthew 28:20), His provision (Philippians 4:19), ultimate healing (Jeremiah 30:17), and eternal joy (Psalm 16:11). What if we took Him at His Word and planted those seeds in our heart (Mark 4:14). We would see that God is faithful and allows nothing we experience to go to waste. Rather, He uses these difficult seasons as fertilizer for seeds of hope to sprout and beauty to blossom (Psalm 126:6).

Maybe most importantly, winter is a good time to give thanks. The Bible says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Give thanks in the hard times?

Yes. This is what Jesus did. On His hardest night of all, the night He was betrayed, the night before His crucifixion, He broke bread with His disciples and gave thanks (Luke 22:19). He did this because He knew the joy that would follow enduring the cross (Hebrews 12:2). We too can do it by fixing our eyes on Him and remembering “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Spring will always follow the hardest winter.

In the waiting, God is known to give us a glimpse of what awaits, times to rest and catch our breath, like welcome breaks at the end of a boxing match round (Psalm 34:18 MSG). Last week, He gave us one of those breaks, a welcome reprieve from the bone-chilling cold. Temperatures rose to the 50s, and I was thankful for the opportunity to escape the four walls and venture out for a walk on the farm. As I rounded the bend, I caught glance of a pattern on the ice-glazed pond. Drawing close, I saw the outline of a huge hand, stretched across the icy film, leaving its mark melted upon the surface. I gasped at the extraordinary picture—and answer to prayer.

Thank You, God, for Your wonders never cease to amaze me! I marvel at Your handiwork! What a beautiful reminder of Your presence in the hard season of winter! Thank You for keeping Your hand on me in every challenge I face—and for melting away the icy surface of my heart (Psalm 147:18). I see the good in winter.

P.S. After writing this, I thought about “The Rose,” a chart-topping song written in the 1970s by Amanda McBroom and recorded by Bette Midler as the soundtrack for the 1979 movie by the same name. If you haven’t heard it, I invite you to check it out. Maybe you will find McBroom’s closing lines as meaningful as I did. However, in the second to the last line I would make a slight change to the spelling of “sun’s.”

When the night has been too lonely

And the road has been too long.

And you think that love is only

For the lucky and the strong.

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snows

Lies the seed that with the sun's love

In the spring becomes the rose.

McBroom, Amanda. “How ‘The Rose’ Came To Be.” Amcbroom.com, 

2019, https://amcbroom.com/about/the-rose/.