Winter of the Soul

All my life I've waited

to grow out of sin,

divorce pain

cancel lonliness



I believed a day would really come

When it's all over.

In the winter of the soul,

I realize how much it's going to take

to make everything better.

There's a reason why we all die.

The final restoration is nothing short

of completely wiping out

and restarting over again.

We live in the not yet.

When this life is so good

I'm bursting to hold in my joy,

Sometimes I Forget what the winter was like.

But, in the winter of the soul

every moment is consumed

with memories of the summer.

What it was like to be happy

                      peaceful

                joyful

    sufficient

Life is longing for joy, peace, sufficiency.

Longing never reaches.

It is in itself a kind of pleasure.

To long for the pleasure of heavan is pleasure of itself.

As I long to get there,

      to get to heavan 

How I realize the getting there is half the journey.

Mountains look stunning from

low down here on earth.

When you're among them,

you can't see them so well.

You forget that you're in mountains.

In the winter of the soul

we are conscious only that we long

to reach heavan

In heavan,

Why should we think of anything else?

It's like being in the mountains.

A few times in this life-

    glimpses of heavan

moments of joypeacesufficiency.

And we forget, for a little while, the winter.