Question: Some days when our hearts feel like they’re living in winter, what encouragement can understanding the cycle of the seasons offer?

Answer: “To every thing, there is a season,” so says Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. But we can see that each season holds within it — as does cold winter earth hold summer seeds — the season that follows it and that secretly serves to fulfill its purpose. This means that right within winter, all the potency of spring awaits; within spring, all the fullness of summer awaits; so forth, and so on it goes. The “winter heart” — the heart stripped of its happiness because of having lost something or someone it loved – is only as “forsaken” as is our mistaken belief that the momentary disappearance of what we love means that love no longer exists. The changing seasons show us that while all forms must come and go, the secret Life behind them, and the act of Love by which they are created, lives on forever.