So this morning it snowed. A lot. The day I’m writing this is the day buckets of snow plopped from the sky and blanketed the world in more soggy coldness. I take back what I said about spring being here two weeks ago…it’s not. Who knows how long the snow will last, but right this moment, it’s pretty chilly outside. The snow is so thick and heavy that it keeps sliding off the roof past my window and nearly giving me a heart attack. (In my defense, from the corner of my eye it looks like a massive bird is about to dive-bomb the window…)
It reminds me of hard seasons in life. We face the long, dark, cold season of life, slowly plodding along, knowing we’ll make it to the other end eventually. Then—spring! It arrives in a sudden burst of warmth, sometimes with answers to questions, sometimes with a new path to walk, sometimes mysteriously with no explanation. We joyful run into this new season…only for a gallon of snow to drop on our heads, putting us right back where we were before.
Why? The age-old question doesn’t get any easier the longer you live, or the more humanity learns. We don’t know. Setbacks, hardship, loss…the broken pieces of a fallen world that we can’t put back together. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, why bad people get off scot-free, why people get sick and die.
But I do know this: God is always there. Always, always, always. He’s never not with you in hard times. He will walk with you and help you grow, no matter what the devil throws at you. God has your back. He won’t abandon you to ward off attack on your own.
He gets you through the dark season, but more importantly, He helps you grow during the dark season. He takes that trial and uses it as a refining fire, so that you might come out on the other side stronger. He takes what the enemy intended for evil and He turns it for good.
We can trust that. We can trust that God is holding on, teaching us to walk forward in spite of hardship, illness, or heartbreak. We can trust that God is there.
