Embracing the Ordinary Time of Midwinter
Between wrangling a toddler, keeping the house clean, having to say things like “no, don’t touch your muffin to the toilet” or “please use your hammer not your head”, as well as cooking all of our food from scratch… I’m not finding much time to write here. In my mind I’ll sit on a post for weeks and admittedly that takes up a lot of mental space. So it feels good to be finally getting this one out here. After Christmas was packed up and the house bare again, I began thinking about how early winter holds the festivities of Christmas, late winter brings excitement and plans for spring, but the bleak midwinter requires a bit more intention to enjoy. In order to fully take pleasure in the vibrant green, abundant growth, and nourishing sun of summer, one must learn to steward the muted, gloomy, ordinary time.
I’m not sure how it happened—maybe it’s because I have experienced the joy of summer with a young child, or because I have become more conscious about my light health and circadian rhythm over the past year—but I think I have become a summer girly. Fall has been my favorite season as long as I can remember. Even in elementary school when all the other kids would say their favorite season was summer (because duh there’s swimming and no school!) I was confident that the season of leaves and apple picking and cabin trips was my favorite.
Autumn still holds it’s own excitement even as an adult and especially now as a mother, but as soon as summer ended last year I couldn’t wait for it to come again. I’ve never experienced that before! I can’t help but crave the sun. But alas, for everything there is a season. For now, it is midwinter. There are no holiday festivities or gardens to tend to. Ordinary times can be special in their own way. In this season we have tea pots and french presses full of yummy hot drinks, bowls of winter fruits on the table, lots of fresh breads coming out of the oven, window snowflakes, keeping a clean and tidy home which feels minimal and refreshing after Christmas decorations, ordering seeds for the spring and summer garden, eating from the pantry to save on the grocery bill and stretching my food creativity!
It is enough to just push through and enjoy the simple things this season. We can give to the Lord the seed of winter gloom and tiredness and He will put it in the ground to die. Then He will multiply it and bring it to new life in the Spring. It is a pleasant thing to surrender to our lot and the season at hand.
I pray you are having a blessed new year so far.
—Kaetlyn
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