I clearly remember during the majority of my pre-Chicagoland days listening to weather reports from the Windy City and wondering
a)how anyone could stand what seemed like arctic winter weather up there, and b)why anyone continued to choose to live there! I even remember saying one day to someone “God never intended for anyone to actually live up there – that’s the problem! People moved in!”

Having now lived in this are for nine years, I realize a)how exaggerated the weather reports often are from reality, and b)living here is about a whole lot more than mere weather! There are a lot of reasons to live here. And some pretty good ones at that!

All of that being said, with some of the lowest temperatures ever recorded in one of the coldest and snowiest winters ever experienced in this area, a winter which can only be described as “brutal”, I have had some thoughts that need to be communicated.

The first is – thank God for your blessings. We are in a troubled economy, an uncertain political transition, a nation and world where experts are making dire predictions about the future – and here we are shivering through this winter! It’s hard to think of positives, let alone “blessings” when you’re shoveling snow for the umpteenth time and freezing to death in the process. But when you get up in the morning to a home that is warm, step into a shower with hot water, fix your coffee (or hot chocolate in my case) in your hot microwave, put on your warm clothes and start your car which gets warm in just a few minutes to warmly transport you to your place of employment or commerce where the heat is often actually TOO hot – and continue through your day dashing from warmth to warmth, yes – but being able to do so and having the need and means to be somewhere -THANK GOD! These are all blessings ultimately from HIM! I sometimes have to remind my frozen brain and heart to warmly praise HIM – but when I do, it changes my perspective.

Secondly, think about and pray for those who don’t have what you have -the basics of life. The homeless – yes, I know many of them if not most of them have chosen to live as they do or don’t know any better and can’t be convinced to change – I realize that – but the facts are on these frigid nights – they are where they are and you are where you are. Pray for them. Let your mind and heart wander from the frozen cities of the north to the hot places of the world where people live in squalor, with multi-generational poverty and sickness and suffering that is almost indescribable. Pray for them, for those who God has sent to care for them, for missionaries and caregivers and volunteers and loving souls have given their lives to those less fortunate than they. Pray for them. Just pray. It will change your attitude.

Third, stop and experience with your senses what it would be like to not have what you have. Feel the cold cutting through your coat – and think – what if I didn’t have this coat? Let your bare hand rest a moment on your door handle or an outside railing and think a moment -what if I didn’t have the luxury of warm gloves? Put your face into the bitter wind, and consider: what IF I was homeless, regardless of the reason, tonight? Smell the force of raw nature around you, and hear the howls of the wind and taste the breath-robbing gusts and see the pelting snow and ice – and consider in the midst of this year of negative experiences how good God really has been to you! How He really has blessed you! And how He has provided for you.

This winter at this time in our history kind of puts things into perspective for me – it reorders some items on my “whine list” – and changes some of my selfish thoughts.

You see, the basics have been provided, haven’t they? Not all we want – no – but all we need. That’s not bad! And I, for one, rejoice tonight – on a day it never got above zero – but the sun shined bright!

Think about it. Maybe there is something good about this awful winter after all!