A Different Kind of Cabin Fever

Bachelor Button

A soft blue blanket. Light yellow walls. Spring green comforter and green curtains to match. The colors of Spring. I love our bedroom with its brown painted floor and white curtains on the closet frame. Neat and tidy; yellow flowers in green glass bottles grace the window sill looking to the north. Spring is full of hope and anticipation. Patience is demanded as one sign follows another leading to the climax of the season we all love: Summer. Bold, warm Summer, full of a forgotten freedom from coats and chills. Spring hope is fulfilled in heavenly Summer bright.

Photo taken on our way to Bemidji, Minnesota

And yet Summer, with all its joy and sunshine, must give way to Autumn. For this world has not yet reached its fulfillment but must again step aside to another cycle of seasons. And so we meet Autumn, slowly, reluctantly. And I find that I love him too, for God creates beauty in every season: The crispness of the air, the crunch of leaves as I walk through, the bright blue sky interrupted by flocks of birds and geese making their way to another land. Change is everywhere as nature prepares itself to sleep, to wait. If Spring is Hope, and Summer is Hope Fulfilled, then Autumn is Forgiveness.

Bayfield, Wisconsin

Forgiveness cleanses as the tree drops its leaves, surrendering to its Maker's will. So I too drop my burdens of bitterness, grudges and bad moods. And my heart is changed, set free. And I find that my grudges that seemed so heavy are really nothing at all. Another leaf flutters to the ground, and yet this too God makes beautiful. I rest, like the tree, free from its burdens, and the snow starts to fall.

Gently it falls, and what child is not joyfully pointing and yelling excitedly as the silent peace settles upon the land and in my heart? Though Winter tightens its grip, the peace remains and the cold will not enter. My heart stays warm- as long as I refuse to pick up my burdens that have long been rotting and buried under the purifying snow, then I too shall remain pure and white. Just like my Creator.

Lake Superior

The sun sets and sends its blazing red light across the lake reflecting off the clouds and the rising steam from the water. A wonderland of light. Even Eternal Beauty finds its way into a dark, cold world. And I am in awe of an Eternal Creator who can make a small, cold heart an amphitheater of warmth and light. Reminding me that even in the cold, there is warm Hope. Though unseen, Hope is there, buried underneath the snow, waiting patiently to bloom into full Joy beneath the Son.