January 25, 2007
I often struggle during the months of January and February as we experience the final days of winter. I am a warm weather person, and I sometimes become so eager for spring that it is painful. I yearn for those days when the ground warms, the grass and trees begin to turn green, the earth comes to life once again. The last couple of weeks have been especially tough as we have experienced lots of rain along with some sleet and ice.
About this time every year I think of the great French novelist Albert Camus who, along with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, led the French Existentialist movement during the middle of the 20th century. The existentialists were known for their dark, cynical view of life. And yet Camus could not escape the heartbeat of hope that God had planted within him. He once wrote what is perhaps the most memorable line in existentialist literature: "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
That quote is almost Biblical in its profound truth. Will spring ever get here? You bet. It is as inevitable as the rising of the sun. And if you are personally going through a winter of despair or illness or trouble, the same is true. It may seem as if the dark, cold days of your life will never end, but they will. God has planted within you the seeds of hope, and that hope is not in vain. Spring is on the way, and with it the great day of Resurrection that we call Easter. So it is in your life as well. Celebrate the Good News of what God is doing in your life even in the darkest of days.
