Last year I didn’t struggle with winter, in fact it was like my body craved winter.  Winter and I were best friends last year.  We belonged to each other hand in hand.  I loved how the world would plunge into darkness and loved how each day would get shorter and shorter. It was as if winter darkness understood my emotions from a forgotten past.  A reality of darkness mapped in my mind like twilight gloom. I was in my element.  The darkness didn’t eat me up so much.  I knew I could blend in with the darkness and no-one would know how I would truly feel.  I was a grieving mum.  I am still a grieving mum, but I have come a long way since last winter season.

Now it is just the coldness of winter frost that stings my heart bare.  I find myself wishing, urging after the delicacy of spring hue to warm my heart.  But a curtain of thick heavy snow clouds remains closely above the earth’s surface as I battle to combat the winter blues of deep darkness. How I wish the sun could shine again.  I can’t remember the last time when we had sun for weeks on end.  Now it is just this thick blanket of wet gray clouds that follow me wherever I go, and I sink into the depths and folds of winter depression.

Its so cold outside that you just want to curl right back into bed and go into winter hibernation so that the long winter months will come to an end when you wake up as if from a terrible dream. Winter is here and it seems to haunt me wherever I go.  I cannot do as much as I am able to do when the weather is warm.  I can’t go out running when I want because by the time I come home from work it is dark and not safe for a woman to go out by herself.  I want to curl up underneath my covers and warm my soul up from the bitter cold that has taken an eager bite of my skin.

Honestly, I feel myself drowning into this dark pit of despair, and I can’t seem to get out.  I feel tired, I feel low, and depressed.  Winter darkness has got its grip on me and I feel like I am trapped in a world of endless darkness when I am craving after some sun to light my world.

Lost hope.  Winter brings everything to a startling halt and all you have to do is wait.  Wait for this season of cold to pass.  I now understand why God invented Christmas lights in the northern hemisphere so that its people will not sink low into the mushy lands of despair but that there is something to look forward to.  The celebration of Jesus’s birth, our Lord and our saviour. Let light come into this world i beg,so that we don’t have to lie in this darkness.

Between now and December 21st the days will only get shorter and shorter and I can only hope that God will carry me through as i sink into the mushy lands of complete darkness, as the cold clings onto my skin like a blanket of frost.  After December 21st the days will slowly start to grow longer.  I can’t wait for that to happen to experience longer days once more.  If only I could see the northern lights….. to see the magic of God’s creation……

Winter struggles always seems to put things to a startling halt till we wait for spring to warm up our hearts. The one thing I have to remind myself is not to lose hope.  View this season as a waiting season, as a time of preparation as I wait to launch my book in spring.  See when the season of new beginnings begin. Despair not… for this is just a short season though it feels like the longest season of my life……………….. winter darkness fulfilled.