Mid-Winter in Winnipeg

So it's the middle of January 2013, and the local Winnipeg paper remarked that it's quite possibly the coldest day of the year.

I knew it would come to this. I saw this coming:

It's Winnipeg, after all, also called WinterPeg or WindyPeg. 

But know this. After we moved here last June, and experienced many warm and lovely days in July and August, I purposely filed away those days for future use. Like for this month.

I remarked at the time to many people, "I am glad I moved here in the summertime, so that I will know in the middle of the most bitter cold days to come, that it will not always be so bad. I will not despair, because I have experienced warmer days."

Thinking Theologically

Of course, being a practicing theologian, I could not let it rest there. I immediately searched for the spiritual dimension.

My first thoughts ran to eschatology. The end of days, the Day of the Lord, the apocalypse. Happy thoughts, actually, because I lean post-millennial. I keep a measure of irrational and irresistible hope in my pocket that the future will be better than today.

Here's the thing. In the deepest, darkest, most depressing days I have, I try to remember that I have once (and maybe even once in a great while) experienced something better.

That something better comes via a personal experience of God in Christ, in whom all things will be made new.  It may be bleak now, but I know better.