One Day at a Time

Every day now, the countryman will remind you, is another day toward spring. If it is bright and sunny, it is a bonus day to weigh against the winter averages. If it is raw and blustery, full of snow or sleet or torturing wind, it is one more day of winter endured. Either way, it moves us another step toward April.

The days themselves are changing. When the year turned, the sun was in the sky only a little more than nine hours. In mid-February it will be there, visible or not, an hour and a half longer. And the night hours of darkness are losing their grip on the numbing cold. Until the middle of February, the nights will have been losing about two minutes of darkness each day, but after this period they will lose almost three.

Don't go looking for spring just down the road. All you will find is March. The vernal equinox now is just weeks ahead, true; but spring isn't a date on a calendar, and it isn't an astronomical calculation set down in an almanac. Spring is a new sprout, an unfolding leaf, a blossom and a bee. It is brooks chattering across the meadows and peepers shrilling in the bog lands in the dusk.

But first, winter must pass. And winter, whether it lifts your heart or tries your soul, still passes one day at a time.
--Editorial in New York Times

I clipped this from a Reader's Digest a few years back when it seemed winter in Red Lodge would never end. Now, back in Powell, it still seems like winter will never end. I am beginning to wonder if the winter in my heart will ever end... I can see signs of spring approaching to end this grief. Winds will blow and change everything once again. Whether winds of chilling, or winds of warming, oh my how the wind doth blow!

But first, winter must pass. And winter, whether it lifts your heart or tries your soul, still passes one day at a time.

We will get by. Thanks be to God who gives us added strength and moments of peace and clarity.


Remembering warmer days...