“My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.”
Song of Songs 2:10-11 NIV

Winter is supposed to be just a season but sometimes it feels like an eternity. We expect the seasons to change with a familiar regularity but sometimes we get stuck. We hear our beloved bridegroom’s invitation to leave winter behind us but winter remains and spring seems no-where in sight. This can leave us feeling perplexed as we think – if it’s over, then why am I still here? What am I doing wrong? But we have to look more closely at this passage of scripture to understand just how Jesus invites us to leave winter behind. However he does it in a way that we might not expect; Jesus simply calls us into a deeper place of intimacy within our relationship.

“Show me your face, let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely”
Song of Songs 2:14 NIV

Intimacy is being known and accepted for who you truly are, as you are. Jesus simply asks us to come and be fully seen & known by him; to allow him to see our true selves with nothing hidden. But although this invitation seems straightforward, our reply often complicates things. Our initial response can be tainted by our shame and fears, like the bride in the Song of Songs, we turn him away and say no.

“Until the day breaks and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag on the rugged hills.”
Song of Songs 2:17 NIV

Sometimes the thing Jesus asks of us isn’t what we expect and it’s the thing we feel least capable of doing, so we disregard our desperation to leave winter behind, turn away from him and stay where we are. His words of affirmation that should encourage us, scare us. We struggle to accept the things he says about us. It’s easier to stay in our shame and self-hatred than to take a risk and believe that we truly are lovely to him, that he loves and accepts all that we are and all that we are not. We disbelieve that we can fully show him our true selves and that he will still desire us. Will he still call me lovely if he sees who I really am?

His invitation is to come out of hiding, to let go of all our shame, unworthiness and fears and to be fully known just as we are. But it feels safer to stay hidden than to fully let him into our hearts. We feel incapable of going on this journey of vulnerability, we know that it will cost us. Intimacy has a cost. True relationship cannot be controlled or faked or manipulated. It requires openness, honesty and trust. All facades have to be laid down. Whatever performance we have put on to protect ourselves has to stop. We count the cost and the cost seems too great. So we avoid his gaze and often without fully intending it, we allow our fears to rule us and remain in winter instead of moving forward with our beloved into spring.

However there is a greater cost incurred when we choose to turn away and stay hidden, as our relationship with Christ will never mature. Why is intimacy with Jesus such a fundamental area for us as believers to grow in? Because in that place of deeper intimacy we learn to trust. Trust is such a vital factor of our relationship with our bridegroom because only when we trust him are we able to walk by faith, which is an essential component required for us to become over-comers! When we walk only by sight, our fears and doubts hold us back and keep us bound. Only by supernatural faith can we look beyond our current circumstances, our winter, and recognise the spring before us and then by faith begin to grasp that reality and advance into it, overcoming every obstacle in our path. We have to believe in what Jesus sees and says about us and our future, over and above what we can detect with our own eyes. In other words we trust that the winter is over, just because he says so, even if we can’t distinguish that yet.

Without trust and faith we will stay right where we are. Boldly stepping out in faith, relying on his words alone, requires a secure foundation of trust and that trust grows through relationship, by believing in his adoration and affection for us. If we want to leave our winter behind us, the first step is to choose to believe in his love and desire toward us, even in our weakness. When we learn to trust him with all that we are, our whole hearts, we realise he is the one that knows us most and that he makes the declaration that we are lovely from that place of knowing us better than we know ourselves. But it’s up to us to believe him.

If we want to step out in faith and become over-comers, we have to enter into intimacy first and foremost, only then we can go by faith to where Jesus wants to take us. Jesus’ invitation in the Song of Songs is actually two-fold – he’s inviting us into deeper relationship and drawing us into his heart because he wants to take us to conquer the mountains – the problem areas in our life that are keeping us stuck. He wants to lead us out of our winter, of where we are caught right now, and bring us to a place of complete victory.

“Arise, my dearest. Hurry, my darling.
Come away with me!
I have come as you have asked
to draw you to my heart and lead you out.”
Song of Songs 2:10 TPT

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(Read Winter (1) first if you haven’t already!)

One of the things I have discovered in this winter season that has really helped me to slow down and renew my soul has been ‘Contemplative Prayer’. This is a type of meditation that can be practiced in many ways but my favourite approach is just to sit and be in silence, focusing on the presence of God. By choosing to engage in contemplative prayer daily, I created a regular space in my life where the only object was simply to be still, body, soul and spirit. Initially my thoughts, and sometimes my body too, felt resistant to being still but I chose to keep persevering, even when I felt uncomfortable in the silence. It was like I had forgotten how to stop and just be, my automatic reflex was to to just keep going, I realised I only felt comfortable when I was busy, but that began to change. As I returned to and rested in God’s presence everyday I slowly noticed a shift in my inner world, a stillness was beginning to grow. Peace beyond understanding was flowing from my spirit and beginning to permeate my soul, displacing my racing thoughts. My soul began to feel at rest throughout the day, not just during the time I spent in contemplative prayer. It was like I was remembering how to just be. 

As I look back I realise resting wasn’t really something I had been giving myself permission to do, physically or mentally, I felt that I ought to just keep going. Life just felt like an endless to-do list and I just kept looking ahead to the next thing, then the next thing. I never felt present and I wasn’t really enjoying my life, it just felt like I was rushing through it. If we don’t have moments of rest where we slow down and actually allow ourselves to feel how we are doing, but instead just keep ploughing ahead with the next thing on the schedule, then we will burn out. I could not sustain a life of doing as I had forgotten how to be and rest. To do we must first know how to be, otherwise we won’t know when to stop. Limits are a part of life, we weren’t designed to just keep going, like the trees we were also designed to need rest. 

In this wintertime I realised I had to cultivate rest deep within me that would enable me to move into spring. I needed to carry in my soul the wisdom that winter could reveal to me, the ability to slow down, rest and wait. Winter has shown me it’s okay to be in the in-between, that it’s okay to lay things down and stop. Instead of always being in a rush, always thinking of the next thing, I can pause in the moment and just be. I no longer feel in a constant hurry, I now take time to enjoy and delight in the world around me instead of just rushing past it. Winter has given me a new perspective, a slower and more grounded perspective, there will always be more things ‘to-do’ but I can now see the value of slowing down, resting and being present. I still look forward to spring and for the winter to fully pass, but I know that I will be able to enjoy spring all the more because of how this winter season has shaped me, however hard it has been to endure. 

“Some things you can’t know till you’re still
In the silence
Where your spinning thoughts slow down
In the stillness
Things have a way of working out”
House on a Hill – Amanda Lindsey Cook

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Winter is a season of waiting and it can be one of the hardest seasons to endure. When we experience a personal season of winter in our lives, the frozen and apparently barren landscape we find ourselves in leaves us hoping the relief of spring will come quickly. The repetition of the seasons surely teaches us that spring always comes, despite how foreboding the winter may seem. Yet however sure we are that winter will end, the wait can seem endless and it is easy to lose hope as we are left languishing in the cold. Although things look bleak, every season has its purpose and instead of just looking beyond winter toward spring, we can discover that winter can be a valuable period in our lives. 

Winter is an essential season in the life of a tree, it is a pause between all that was and all that will be. Winter is the in-between season – all the old autumn leaves have fallen to the ground but the new growth of spring is still yet to come. The trees laying down of their leaves has a purpose in the cycle of their lives, it’s a time for them to rest and get ready for what is to come, they have shed the old in preparation for the new.  But the new does not come straight away, the trees pause and rest during the cold, bitter months where it it toughest to survive. Although a tree in winter can look desolate from an outside perspective, a lot of what is happening is unseen, things aren’t necessarily desolate, just hidden. Beneath the surface there is growth, renewal, refreshing and preparation for all that is to come. Sometimes we need to experience a season of winter in our own lives as, like the trees, we also need time to rest and recuperate in the waiting. As the leaves on the trees fall to the ground for a season, we for seasons also have to lay things down and allow ourselves to slow down. As we slow down and take time to rest we can gain a different perspective as we allow ourselves time to just be. Winter is a season of being, rather than doing. Winter is not a busy but a quiet season, it’s not a time for planting or harvesting and the focus is not on what we are ‘producing’ with our lives, but it is an opportunity to cultivate life on the inside and prepare for what is to come.

Winter seasons can be a choice or they can be forced upon us. Often we won’t have to lay everything down at once, just certain areas of our lives, although that has certainly not been my experience. Winter’s fierce tempest struck my physical health with a shattering blow and I had to let the remaining fragments of my life hit the ground. My only option was to rest almost permanently as my body objected to any kind of output. I could no longer freely work, socialise or engage in ‘normal’ life. Life as I knew it had come to a grinding halt. Even though this physical rest had been forced upon me, I soon realised I was not really at rest as there was no rest within me. My thoughts still raced although my body could not, I felt on edge and over-thought every tiny thing and seemed to have no control over what went through my mind. I also felt deeply weary on the inside – worn down by the struggle of life. I desperately required refreshing internally as well as externally, it wasn‘t just my body that needing healing, but my soul too. My soul needed to remember how to rest and simply be and however harsh this winter season felt, it did provide an opportunity to do just that.

 

(Part Two to follow soon…)

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1:2-4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

When I first read this scripture I thought… really?? Do the words joy and trials really belong in the same sentence? I think not… I felt so far from joy and instead felt overwhelmingly disappointed in the midst of many ongoing trials. To say the least, I found this scripture a challenging read. But instead of just turning away from it and closing my heart, I sat with it and pondered it for a while.

I really began to focus on that very first word, Consider. I realised I wasn’t being asked to feel pure joy in trials (and that was a relief!) but instead to change my perspective; it was an invitation to change how I thought about my ongoing trials despite how I was feeling. Some days I feel a lot of negative emotions, particularly during setbacks, such as anger, annoyance, depression, disappointment and frustration, to name a few. I can’t just stop the feelings or decide to simply feel a different way. But I have realised I don’t have to stay and dwell in the negative emotions when they arise. I can’t choose my emotions but I can choose my thoughts and I realised that by changing my thoughts I could influence how I felt.

I have to choose to think that even though this may not feel good right now, I am able to look beyond this moment and see the good things happening inside me that’s the result of this hard season, that my character is being shaped for good in the process of these trials. And I have to keep choosing, even on the days where I feel I would much rather it all be over, than be mature! By choosing to see a positive outcome of my circumstances, despite how bad and hard it feels to be going through it, I began to feel more positive in my circumstances, although nothing on the outside had really changed. On some days I even managed to experience some joy in the midst of my trials, which had previously felt nearly impossible.

I’m choosing to try to adjust the way I think about trials and hard times, as I have realised the hard times aren’t going anywhere. Trials and tribulations will keep coming and coming, again and again, whether we like it or not… The season will change and look different but life is hard, whatever is going on in our lives. There will be good times, seasons of relief and peace, but winter always comes. If we can change the way we see and think about these seasons, we won’t be so thrown when they hit us, as we know they won’t take us out but will only make us stronger. This scripture in James suggests that we need to undergo trials and tribulations in order to become mature and complete. Most of us would say we want to be mature and complete but are we willing to walk through the trials to get there? We have to be able to see we need the good times and the bad times to become shaped and moulded, mature and complete, in order to receive all God has for us in this life.

P.S. If you have enjoyed reading this don’t forget to Follow Me! by entering your email address at the bottom of the page for email updates on new posts!

I just wanted to write something short about this book I am loving, She Is Free by Andi Andrew. I only recently heard of Andi Andrew after she appeared on Havilah Cunnington’s Online Empowerment Summit (which I’ve linked as it is a great resource on spiritual warfare). Out of all the people that were interviewed Andi’s story just really grabbed me and her book has been a real find. When I read a lot of the “self-help Christian” genre I can find myself forcing myself to read, I know they’re full of wisdom but I just generally love a good story & find them easier to read. However Andi’s book has a really light fresh feel yet is full of deep truth that is empowering me to walk in freedom and overall it is an enjoyable read. The chapters are a mix of general and specific chapters, a lot are titled “Freedom from …” (insert shame, anger, control etc). I found that even the chapters I thought might not be relevant to me ended up being relevant in some way and helped me too see things in myself that I had not been fully aware of. One thing I really like is that at the end of each chapter she has a section called “Walking in Freedom” which has practical steps for the reader to follow to allow the truth of that chapter to really begin to manifest tangibly in their own lives. I have only just finished this book but know already it won’t be long before I come back to it for another read. Overall I would really recommend this book to anyone who desires more freedom (who doesn’t?!), particularly in their mind and emotions.

 

 

Can’t getting started just be the hardest thing? It becomes this big deal, doing something for the first time. Well it does for me anyway because of this innate desire to be perfect at everything instantly which is the most impossible thing ever. Hence why I never succeeded at playing an instrument, because that is something that you just can’t be good at straight away, it takes effort and perseverance!  I just end up procrastinating or in the case of this blog I begin writing about 5 blog posts and never finish any of them because of this doubt that just hangs over me that what I do will not be good enough. That is such a lie, but it can feel like the truth in the moment.

So I decided I just have to do it. Write something. I just have to face the risk that I might be a terrible writer and my blog might be a failure. But I’ll never know if I never try. And it might turn out ok or even good. And my writing may develop over time to become good even if isn’t now. I don’t want to live afraid and never attempt anything, thwarted by my fear of failure before I have even begun.

In a podcast I listened to about 6 months ago (which I won’t go into details about) but they said “Give yourself permission to be a beginner”. So that is what I shall do.