018 (Love in Winter)

[Poem by Rory Hudson, Australian poet.]

Tis said, of course, that springtime is the season
when love swells bright and bold, beyond thin reason.
but I have known you in the winter, too,
and  loved the dying that I saw in you.
Your gentle fading into quiet retreat,
the spirit shining 'neath the world's deceit.
For when the leaves have fallen from the trees,
and birds, no longer chirping, rest at ease,
the is the world to essences reduced
and deeper modes of being introduced,
a kind of slow and unselfconscious sleep-
in you, a beauty to make wise men weep,
For I have seen the sadness in your eyes,
the insight of the slipping of the prize.
In winter, this in you comes to the fore,
for which I love you then not less, but more.

This winter has not been the season I expected it to be; Quite the opposite, actually. But there's something about the winter that has done something unique in me: In it, Jesus has whittled me down, reduced me to the things that I am and only am, the essences I am made of, and allowed the rest to leave.

It's not a painless process. I think it's happening to a lot of people right now. Some would be angry that Holy Spirit would take so much from them. I am not angry. I welcome any and every change He wishes to make, I embrace the moments when things that I profess to own slip out of my weak and unsure grasp. I lean into the thing that I love most, Him, and let Him become the very substance that is within me, the essence of my soul, the thing that spills out when I am pressed hard on all sides and the thing that people will see in the end.

Let it be Him.

And then Spring comes.