Is Your Soul in a Spiritual Winter?

Ah, the irony to share with you a post on winter right at the summer solstice. Here we are (in the northern hemisphere at least) enjoying days longer than nights. My friends in Alaska are out fishing or playing under the midnight sun, and I–currently visiting family in Idaho–am bouncing upon the spontaneity of summer’s schedule, or lack thereof, and letting my children stay up until ten o’clock simply because I’ve lost track of time and how could it possibly be so late if it’s still light out?!

Where are you? What does the earth’s season look like around you?

Do you find your heart ready to catch summer’s breeze and soar? Or does the excitement and daylight around you make you squint against its audacious breaching into the dark, muted spaces of your soul? If so, you might be in a spiritual season of winter.

INDICATORS OF A SPIRITUAL WINTER OF THE SOUL

Here is something that nature asserts to be true: a season of dormancy is absolutely necessary for the growth and fruitfulness of a plant. Whether that season is laden with snow or barren of rain, the effect is the same, and a forced rest will happen before any fruit is born. I think we humans have a thing or two to learn from the rhythms and cycles of God’s creation (which, we are also a part of).

“Wintering brings about some of the most profound and insightful moments of our human experience, and wisdom resides in those who have wintered. In our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter. We don’t ever dare to feel its full bite, and we don’t dare to show the way that it ravages us. A sharp wintering, sometimes, would do us good. We must stop believing that these times in our life are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower. We must stop trying to ignore them or dispose of them. They are real, and they are asking something of us. We must learn to invite the winter in.”

Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

I have not read May’s book on wintering, and my understanding is that it’s not written from a Christian worldview; however, I resonate with the strong sentiment of the above quote, that a good wintering can do us good. You’ve likely heard the quip that if you don’t rest physically, your body will eventually force you to. Could this be true spiritually, as well? God’s model of Sabbath rest would suggest so as we see that the Israelite’s time in exile directly related to the number of years they failed to let the ground rest. (See Leviticus 26:34-35)

So sometimes, I’d like to suggest, we need to choose to winter after a heavy harvest. Other times, however, something tragic ices the landscape of our souls without warning. There’s no choosing about it. The blizzard is upon us and we can only hold onto the rope tied to the barn while we blindly stumble toward shelter.

If your soul is in the spiritual season of winter, these may be some indicators:

• A frenetic season of work, ministry or family life has come to a close and you crave stillness
• You continue to push forward with a task that used to give you joy but now feels only exhausting
• What used to facilitate your connection and growth with God now feels dry
• You’ve experienced a significant loss (of a loved one, a dream, a home, stability, health, etc.) and are grieving deeply
• All your efforts simply don’t produce much fruit
• God has recently done some serious renovation in your heart and now it’s settling in, being put to the test
• You’re waiting–everything hinges on an upcoming change
• Your prayers lack fervor, seem one-sided, and are hard to share aloud without feeling forced

KEY SPIRITUAL PRACTICES FOR WINTER

If you believe you might be in a spiritual winter or need to choose a season of quietness and rest, you may find the following spiritual disciplines, or practices as I prefer to call them, helpful for connecting with the Lord:

• Sabbath. While this is a gift from the Lord for all seasons, initiating or strengthening your practice of Sabbath may be particularly helpful in your soul’s winter. Sabbath is for remembering, with thankfulness, what the Lord has given you already. Winter tempts us to bemoan our losses, while Sabbath encourages us to embrace the abundance that is already ours in Christ Jesus. Manna may not be falling from the sky on this day, in this season, but trusting our Father’s goodness on Sabbath stares the fear of scarcity in the eye and proclaims, “My God is more than enough.”

• Solitude. Learn to be alone. Take long walks. Sit in silence. Schedule coffee dates with Jesus and leave your phone at home. Start a solitary hobby, such as woodworking or candle making or snowshoeing or bee keeping. Get away by yourself for a day, a week even. As I’ve said before, be present to God in the silence so that you can be present to people in the noise. 

• Wordless prayers. The people closest to you are the ones who you need to share the fewest words with to feel loved. Winter is a time where God often feels silent, but, I assure you, He is still near. This is a reality you will learn more deeply in the stillness of winter than in the frenzied enjoyment of summer. He’s not impressed with your words, but He adores your trusting gaze. Use your imagination to take you into the throne room, onto Jesus’ lap like a child, or into a favorite Bible story and simply be there with Him.

• Simplicity. You may have collected more stuff–actual stuff, scheduled stuff, emotional stuff–from the past seasons than you really need. Winter is a good time for pruning back, for leanness, for simplicity. Take stock of what you’ve accumulated and let go of what won’t help you grow. Like freshly fallen snow, white space is beauty. 

• Confession. Accepting the pruning of winter might mean forgiveness needs to be offered in order to declutter resentment. Apologies need to be made to scour off pride. Sin needs to be confessed to pitch it with the refuse, where it belongs. Do this on purpose. Do it out loud. Do it more than once.

BOOKS FOR WINTER

• Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence by Ruth Haley Barton invites you to meet God deeply and fully outside the demands and noise of daily life. It is a call to the adventure of spiritual transformation–an adventure that will lead you to freedom and authenticity, allowing you to become the person God created you to be.

• A personal favorite, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath by Mark Buchanan, is both an intimate and practical guide to discovering the gift of rest. His writing arrests and inspires me.

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. “Essentialism is not one more thing – it’s a whole new way of doing everything.” This one is on my want to read list.

A SCRIPTURE FOR WINTER

 “ I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.” ( Psalm 130:5)

Psalm 130 is brief, passing from a distressed cry for the Lord’s attention to an anchored hope in his redemption in merely eight verses. But the hinge of that change? The crux of this transformed perspective? Verse five, with its whole-hearted waiting on the Lord. This is what winter offers: roots strong and deep and secure in the hope of waiting on your God to come through.

In 2020, I offered a 14-Day Wilderness Bible study for free, and as the barrenness of winter closely parallels the scriptural idea of wilderness, I’d like to share it again here.

A WINTER PRAYER FOR YOU

Yahweh … the I AM. You are here. You are with my reader in the quiet disruption of her soul. You are building her resilience and faith through the waiting, the silence, the uncertainty. You need give us nothing more than Your presence, and I thank you for how winter helps us hold on to that. Strengthen her to withstand the icy gales and biting frost. Give her the gift of rest, of stillness, of silent hope. And please whisper to her heart that you will see her through, and spring will come. Resurrection awaits! 

Amen.

P.S. – A LOVE NOTE DURING WINTER FROM MY MOM

I stumbled upon this letter from my mom dated November 28, 2007 in my sorting this week. It seemed too timely not to share pieces of it with you here.

I look at your discouragement and loss of hope as a direct parallel with the long gloomy winter that is now setting in around you. If you look at the surface everything seems to be dead. There appears to be no life or any reason for hope that it will change. But we know that underneath the frozen terrain lies the hope of new life. Spring may seem like it’s a long way off. Seemingly an unattainable span of time to wait patiently. But wait we must, for spring is coming and with it the promise of its rebirth.

Spring also will come again to your heart. Trust Him. He won’t let you down. Press in hard to His strength. He’ll hold you up!

I love you more than you know and He even more so.

Mom

Thank you, Mom. You were right. Spring did come, and so did another winter and yet another spring. New life is always just a lion’s breath away.

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• WHAT SEASON IS YOUR SOUL IN?
• THE SPIRITUAL SEASON OF AUTUMN
• HOW TO PLANT WELL IN A SPIRITUAL SPRING
• SUMMER OF THE SOUL