Woman to Woman: Winter Won't Last Forever

By: Jenifer Metzger

The weather here in the Midwest has been crazy this year. Crazy weather in February and early March is pretty normal here. But typically come the end of March, spring has come to stay. This year, however, we would have a day of beautiful springlike weather, then the next day winter returned in full force. Then the following day, it would almost feel like summer, only to have winter make another appearance. This went on for over a month! Last week I was outside looking at all of the trees and got a little sad. Here it was the end of April and the trees were still bare.

It started to feel like winter was going to last forever.

Isn't it that way with our problems? They just hang on forever. When it starts looking up and you can see the light, suddenly winter blows back in. You feel the frigid air of your problems and just want the warmth of everything being okay.

Just when I thought winter had taken up a permanent residence outside my front door, I look outside and to my pure delight I see tiny green leaves dangling from the trees. I look down the street to see flowering trees full of little white blooms. Spring has finally made it's late appearance!

Just as winter finally gives way to spring, your problems will not last forever.

Friends, it is the same way with our problems. The season you are going through will not last forever. The troublesome child you are dealing with, it won't last forever. The endless diaper changes and piles of laundry, it won't last forever. The financial problems, they won't last forever. The illness, it won't last forever. Whatever it is you are facing, know that your winter won't last forever. It's a season.

There is an occasion for everything,

and a time for every activity under heaven:

a time to give birth and a time to die;

a time to plant and a time to uproot;

a time to kill and a time to heal;

a time to tear down and a time to build;

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn and a time to dance;

a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;

a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing;

a time to search and a time to count as lost;

a time to keep and a time to throw away;