We Are Not Evergreens
living into winter
Hello Winter Bebes -
We have entered gray season. Our hours of daylight are fleeting, and each morning, my alarm clock has to take this tone before I can drag myself out of bed:
7:30 a.m. sunrises will do that to you.
I am a summer girl. I do not love the ghost vibes my skin gives off this time of year; I yearn for windows-down, the all-day-outside days of July. But last year around this time as I was bemoaning the onset of another long winter, my wise friend Susan asked me what it would look like to take my cues from these winter days rather than resist them with every fiber of my being. She asked me what it would feel like to slow down, to let the weather dictate my days rather than the tyranny of my to-do list.
I’ve been thinking about it ever since, but in these past few weeks, that same message has been absolutely bombarding me. I wrote my way through my thoughts and am sharing them below. I would love to know what living into winter looks like for you.
Having spent most of my life in the Midwest, surrounded by forests and farm fields, the seasonal patterns of spring, summer, fall, and winter became part of my DNA from a young age. Whether it was noticing icy corn fields newly turned over in spring or the back-breaking hours I spent raking a literal forest full of leaves each fall, the rhythm of the seasons has played a huge part in shaping me.
Early in our marriage, Eric and I attended a L’Abri conference. The first lecture we went to was all about the seasonal nature of the food we eat and how it reflects the nature of who we are as created beings. Despite having grown up surrounded by a landscape visually dominated by the seasons, I was drawn to the newness of the idea that I too, am a seasonal being. After years spent in Midwest grocery stores with year-round strawberries, I began experimenting with eating asparagus only for a couple months in spring, tomatoes for a few glorious weeks in late fall. I even wrote an entire blog about seasonal eating for four years, my first foray into writing on the Internet.
Since that lecture, Eric and I have worked to embed the concept of living seasonally deeply into our family culture, but in recent weeks, I’ve realized I’ve stopped short of allowing the ebb and flow of seasons to settle into my own self — onto my body and expectations. For most of my life, I have been driven by what feels like a relentless drum beat, a never-ceasing Energizer Bunny rhythm, and I’ve followed unwittingly along.
Do you know that experience of reading an article, having a conversation, seeing a painting, and listening to a podcast over the course of a few weeks and slowly coming to the realization that all of it had the same message for you? Call it the algorithm or the Holy Spirit, but I’m starting to pay attention: we are not meant to constantly produce.
I am seeing it in nature as the trees around me lift their bare, fruitless branches to the sky, cloaked in white and quiet. I am learning it from my own menstrual cycle thanks to Lyndsey Medford’s advent guide “Menstruwaiting”…we are literally and hormonally designed to take it easy for a week or so every month. Even Instagram is pitching in, with the algorithm reminding me that we don’t need to finish the year strong, we can finish it soft. I hear it in Mary’s response to her encounter with God - “Let it be done to me,” a noticeable departure from “Let me do it all.”
Yet, there is the constant pull to do more, to do better. Maybe it’s intrinsically American, or even Evangelical, or we could blame it on the enneagram (textbook 1 at your service), but I continually forget the deep rhythm God put into place when rest on the seventh day was established as a day of rest. I have bought into the machine-pace of ever-green, ever-producing, forgetting that I am a creature of limitations, made from dust in the image of a limitless God.
So many of us run ragged under this misguided idea that we are to continually pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, to “make every moment count,” for the glory of God and the love of our fellow man. And while self-sacrifice is an essential part to following in the path of Jesus, so is rest. We are also called to follow him into the quiet and lonely places.
Our mantra here is that God gently leads those with young (Is. 40:11), but the reality is, God is gentle to us all. God is gentle to those whose bodies are not cooperating. God is gentle to those whose children are far. God is gentle to those whose children are near - perhaps too near - those of us who are hiding in the bathroom with a Christmas cookie, trying to grab one deep breath. God is gentle to those who stand over steaming kitchen pots and pans, gentle to those whose cupboards are uncomfortably bare. God is gentle to those who find themselves stranded, orphaned, estranged. God is gentle to those who those with crying babies, to those whose entire life lately has been a carousel of kleenex and bar buckets. God is gentle to those who are certain, those who aren’t, and to all of us in between.
Being human is just a lot. I want us to remember in this season of advent, in the darkness and in the waiting, that God is not standing with a clipboard, counting up our successes. God is not a God of tally marks but a God of relentless love in the midst of the relentlessness of life. And like his mother cradled him, God cradles us.
It’s okay if you end up using birthday wrapping paper because you keep forgetting to grab Christmas paper at the story (spin it into Happy Birthday, Jesus if you must). It’s okay if you sit out a holiday gathering in the name of exhaustion. It’s okay if you string the lights right over those rotting pumpkins on your porch because God is the God of all things - all seasons, all stages of life and decomposition. It’s okay if storebought trumps handmade this year (or any year). Some seasons are just like that.
This year, I’m listening to my friend Susan. I’m trying to live into winter. I’m trying to release myself from the faulty expectation that I must constantly produce, especially when my brain and body are craving slowness and warmth and comfort during these dark days of December.
I am leaning into this season of darkness and waiting, trying to experiment with not forcing every single thing in my life.
I am bringing a puffy sweatshirt to coffee shops to sit on to support my aging tail bone. I am going to bed earlier. I am making stews that fill our house with winter smells. I am watching Christmas movies with my kids in the afternoon. I am tracking my period and keeping a lower profile in the weeks leading up to it. I am taking my cues from a God who rested, who tenderly leads us to rest, and who designed a world with seasons and placed us in it.
Maybe you too are feeling the particular brand of burnout that school programs and Christmas cookie bake sales and Elf on the Shelf can bring. Maybe your body is rebelling. Maybe you too live where it’s dark at 4:30, and you want to hibernate like a mama bear. I’m with you.
I’m wondering these days what honoring the seasons can look like for us. What would it look like to take a cue from winter’s 4:30 sunsets? What would it look like to honor the highs and lows of our body’s cycles and even schedule around them? What would it look like to invite those we love into similar patterns of rest and slowness? What would it look like if we bought into God’s rhythm of regular rest and lived like we were not meant to ceaselessly produce? I would love to know what this looks like for you.
We are T-minus 12 days from Christmas. This is your friendly reminder to buy your Christmas cookie decorating supplies now before everywhere and everybody is sold out and your children are left to wail in disappointment (learn from my past mistakes).
It’s also a little nudge that in the next two weeks, I’m rolling out a miniseries on Instagram all about Mary. In each post, we’ll talk about what’s going on behind the scenes of Mary the mother of God, aided by good art from some of my favorite visual artists and writers, and we’ll reflect on what we learn of God through her experience and story. As someone who is relatively obsessed with the intersection of faith and motherhood, Mary sits right at the dead center.
You can follow along over on my account, and if you’re really into it, you can hit the little bell next my name in my profile (circled below in blue) in order to be notified each time a new post in the series goes out. Hope to see you there!
Love this friend. Especially this line: ‘We are also called to follow him into the quiet and lonely places.’ So beautiful, and poignant, and true. Thank you for your ministry.
All I have to say is... I’m reading this from the bathtub at 4 pm, which is NOT my usual M.O. but apparently is what this season is demanding 😂. With you!