It looks like later this week we will be teased with some glorious 50 degree weather and I am choosing to believe that this may be the turning point of the transition from winter to spring. In this vein of hopeful optimism, I am slapping all the leftover snowy and icy pictures on the blog with a bit of closure.
It CAN'T snow again if I blog all the snow pictures. Right?!
Last weekend the boys tried out some ice fishing. The weather was absolutely frigid. The ice was at the very least 16 inches thick on the lake. With several hours devoted to freezing off patooti's and half a dozen holes and lines, there wasn't a SINGLE bite. I can't say I was too disappointed- I don't prefer the taste of fish anyway.
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One day Andrew came back from chore time and told me that a deer looked like it was starving by the creek. She couldn't move very well and looked half starved. Indeed, the creature was very sad and her muzzle was so emaciated but even still, quite beautiful in her eyes. We gave her hay and lettuce from the fridge but she didn't make it through the night. So close to spring, and fresh, abundant grass. It was sad.
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About a month ago, when Matt went out to do the morning milking, he discovered our cow in the barn...dead. She was due to give birth in May. We have no idea why or how she died- she was healthy and happy the night before when Andrew gave her more hay and water before bed. Losing both Acorn and her baby was a huge blow to us all and I am so sad about it. Acorn's daughter Hazel won't be able to give us milk for another almost two years.
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I have been keeping nightly vigils for a family whom the Lord have blessed with a hard providence. A woman pregnant with a little Miracle who would not survive outside of the womb, each moment with her squirming and kicking inside her belly a constant gift- and reminder of a time when those flutters and kicks will be no more. I cannot imagine a more hollow and empty loneliness than that. How does one prepare to say goodbye without ever getting to say hello? How does one clutch and cling, even while knowing it slips through your white knuckles like vapor?
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“There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are
None may teach it. Any
’Tis the Seal Despair
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air
When it comes, the Landscape listens
Shadows hold their breath
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death”
Emily Dickinson
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From the moment we are born, we are dying.
Melancholy winter reminds me of that death, that lonely echo, the great helplessness and dependence that we have in a way no other season can.
From the inconsequential to the much more profound, this winter in particular, death surrounds. It doesn't help that news constantly berated people on how to act in order to avoid death in the face of Covid. I write a quote of Calvins' on the chalkboard as a prayer for myself.
As I walk through this winter valley that seems particularly mournful and permeated with despair and death while knowing my grasping at control is futile, I grasp at something else. Something that isn't futile at all.
That is, the knowledge that the Lord works His biggest and best miracles through death. Without His Son and the death that He bore, the greatest Miracle of all time would never have shined through countless generations of His kingdom and countless more to come.
Without the dead seed that is planted in the frozen, dark ground, new life cannot spring forth abundantly.
It is not futile to remember that...
The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. Job 1:21
Blessed.
Meaning: it's a good thing. It's all according to plan. God will work this current pain for good. For His glory.
He alone can make glory from dust.
There is nothing more hopeful than that.
