What a Difference the Weather Makes

After last week's big snow, I made it up to the Guest House with my camera before anything changed Mother Nature's handiwork. Give her a foot or more of snow and some hefty winds and just look at what she can do!

The basement entrance usually looks like this:

After the big snow, it looked like this:

And my little flower bed that started out like this last June:

...looked like this:

As long as you can navigate a couple of steps, getting into the back porch is usually no problem.

Last Thursday, however, was a different story.

Painting the roof on a hot summer day was stifling work.

It wouldn't be now, if you could get to it.

The view of the front yard changed quite a bit, from this...

...to this.

The house that looks so friendly in the warmer months...

...looked a bit lonely after the wind scoured the west side of the yard, leaving it bare

despite 13 inches of snow.

Right now, in the depths of winter's cold, we often find ourselves wishing for summer's warmth. And you know that when those sweltering days of summer arrive, we'll be wishing we had a brisk winter wind to cool things off. Right now it's hard to imagine mowing the yard in shirt sleeves, with sweat dripping from my brow, but when summer comes again it will be hard to imagine all this cold and snow. In another month, there will be a warm breeze sneaking around the eaves. A month after that green grass will be starting to show, and a month after that, we can start to plant gardens, maybe. This changing of the seasons never ceases to amaze me, and I'm glad to live where I can experience the glories and challenges of all four. God's timing is pretty sweet, bringing in a new season just when I'm getting tired of the present one. Although sometimes it seems that winter will last forever, it won't, and neither will the winters of our souls. When life is hard and all seems cold and difficult, we do well to learn from Mother Nature. Be it early or late or right on time, spring always comes.