The last couple of weeks have been really cold. There has been almost 30C degrees difference between here, Carlyle (-23C) and Toronto (+12C). It was good for me to taste what a Saskatchewan winter is like. It seems to be that the season of winter is at least a month longer here than in Southern Ontario. So some people are doing whatever they like to do and some are moving around here and there during this long winter time. If there was no hope of coming spring, not many people would endure and be patient in this really cold winter in Saskatchewan. Truly, winter teaches us many important lessons. Actually it disciplines people to have faith in the hope of the coming spring.
In sport teams, a well organized winter training program is crucial in order to have good results for the upcoming games during the season. Therefore depending on how the winter is spent, the rest of the year can be much different. An interesting thing is that only winter, among the four seasons of the year, overlaps between two years; the passing old year and the coming new year. In the first part of the winter, it is a good time to take an inventory the things that what you have done or not done in the past year. And the later part of the winter is an exciting and refreshing time to plan and have new hope, new commitment and new life for the new year. No matter how cold and long the winter is, spring will surely come like a lion or a lamb.
Indeed winter is a good time to give birth to hope, not only the hope of the coming spring but each one's personal hope for the new year. Someone said, "We, people, can live without food for forty days. We can live without water for four days. We can live without air for four minutes, but we cannot live without hope just for four seconds." So the Bible said, "faith, hope and love abides always" (1 Corinthians 13:13). As long as we are living, there is hope. Hope is the source and power to keep our life vibrant and energizing. Hope for today and hope for tomorrow is how to make us become the people of hope.
Some may complain this a long and cold winter, however without winter, there is no spring. The winter time is the best chance to develop the foundation for birthing hope. Why, because hope is always born in hopeless and helpless circumstances. If there is good spring like weather all the time, people may not need to hope for a better season. So St. Paul said, "But not only that but we also boast in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, " (Romans 5:3-5a). As we, the people of Saskatchewan, have a stubborn and independent character, we will far more easily produce hope for the future than other people in Canada during this long and cold winter. Why? Because our people's characters have been developed by a long term process of endurance. Please don't forget that that birthing hope is genuine and real in our life. And the hope, born of character and endurance, is true hope that is against unrealistic hope. Surely spring will come!
