I’m Freezing!

99+ degrees outside and I’m freezing!  The stifling heat of summer has AC units working overtime.  Flowers are wilting and the grass is fading.  The lakes are like bathwater and ice is melting as quick as it flies out of the icemaker.   But I am freezing.  No, I’m not freezing like Super Man at the Fortress of Solitude, or Mr. Freeze from the old Batman TV show.  My soul is cold.  Here in the “dog days” of summer I am experiencing what theologian Martin Marty dubbed the “winter of the soul”. 

30 years ago, Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School wrote a best-selling book entitled, The Cry of Absence.  The book followed the death of his first wife and chronicled the winter season of the soul with meditations from the Psalms.  Writing for people struggling with grief, suffering and the aches of the heart he writes:

“There is no point in being literal about the condition of winter in the soul.  It occurs whenever the tongue is heavy, the jaws are clenched, and the impulse to play is stifled.  Even then, especially then, there is reason to cling to the promises of God and, perhaps in the quiet chambers of the heart to sing of them.”

Many of God’s favorites (okay so your not supposed to say that) experienced winter seasons, or desert periods in their walk.  From David on the run from a mad king, to the weeping prophet, Jeremiah, the sadness of Jacob over losing a son, and Paul’s great declaration of faith in Romans 8, we find people of great faith with honest struggles. 

I’ve been here before and most likely I will be again.  The key to these wintry seasons of the soul is to cling to God.  Lean into His words and promises.  Reflect on His past blessings, deliverance, healings and favor in your life.  The winter of the soul is tough, but it is not a hopeless place.  Hold fast, lean in, and pray!  The promise of God through the psalmist (Psalm 30) notes that joy may not always be easy, but our hope is not empty:

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!