Comfort by the Campfire

It's cold all of the sudden! I know it's winter and all of that, but it has been just delightful weather. Then all of the sudden, bam it's like winter! I mean we had to scrape ice off the truck this morning, what is up with that?! My feet have been frozen and I absolutely couldn't get the car warm enough, fast enough to make the drive to the gym bearable this morning. I kept putting my hair up in a pony tail, and then pulling it out because my ears needed covering. What a pansy this Pennsylvania girl has become.

The best part of this weather is the early morning hours when you are warm and drowsy and the world seems like a hazy memory and life is good. It's those pre-alarm coming and going from consciousness moments that are delicious and delightful and I want it to go on and on and on. Water too, water tastes so much better when it is really cold as it comes out of the facet. I love that first glass, it's refreshing all the way down. I can't seem to get anyone else excited by that, but I think its remarkable. I also love the smell of wood burning. It's comforting even if you can't see the flames.

The worst part is looking out the window at 5:00 pm and the sun gone and the dark closing in. By 8:00 pm you feel like you have been up into the wee small hours and you are too tired to stay awake any longer. It's depressing. The skies seem to be greyer, longer and the leaves fall and the trees look sad and barren. It's not the comfort season, it's the season of our discontent. It would be unbearable only the water is delightful to drink, the covers make the bed a haven and smell of wood burning remind you of friends and family and the comfort of their presence.

I am finding that presence is the key to lots of comfort moments. Quite often when I am frazzled to the core and feeling lost and defeated an email arrives, a card, a phone call and somehow that little touch is enough to love me into a better frame of mind. I love when God seems so far away and someone pops in to tell me about a God moment. I really love when some silly thing I have done, or said, or written becomes a means of grace and God allows me to know. It's like winning a medal or finishing a long detailed exhausting job, it's a feeling of intense satisfaction. The same one I have felt many times, laying in front of a fire, feet on the hearth and head on a big squishy pillow. Life is very good.

I don't know why God made comfort an essential need, but it is. I don't know why certain things are comforting but they are. And I don't know why we should have to have times when we feel bad to appreciate how good it is to feel good. I only know this, God is faithful and in time dancing replaces weeping and a crown of beauty replaces ashes. The fire place is calling my name. Discontent is a brief season, comfort is a life time.