Winter is always my least favorite time of year. I don’t like cold weather and I don’t like the way the trees look stripped bare of their leaves. Adding to my dislike for winter is the frustration the last few weeks have brought. Due to the seasonal nature of the job where I work, I’ve been getting about half the hours that I was getting over the summer. This was to be expected, but I have had an insanely difficult time finding another job. To make matters worse, I was forced to move about of the place I was living about mid-December, so I am now paying about twice the rent and driving four times as far to work as I was. As day after day of filling out applications, e-mailing resumes, and going to interviews without any success passes, I have begun to wonder whether I will ever be able to find work.

Winter is the season when seeds planted in the fall lie fallow, seeming to be dead until the spring, when they push through the soil and bloom. There are so many parallels between these seasonal dynamics and my own life. After the long process of being educated and refining my understanding of the Scriptures and vision for what I would like to build with my life, the last couple of years have brought a season of seeming fruitlessness when nothing I touch seems to succeed. I remind myself regularly of Jesus’ statement that a grain of wheat has to fall into the ground and die before it can bear fruit, but that doesn’t make the waiting for spring too much easier. If you think of me, I would greatly appreciate a word of prayer on my behalf