November is a month of great complexities. It is usually in this month that we experience the last vestiges of mild weather and transition to the Winter weather that will settle in for several months ahead.
There's always a certain thrill and sadness for me when I realize that Wisconsin's first snow (Nov. 16th average) is going to last for at least 4 months of time. The first snow seems so beautiful but it also means our days of t shirts are over for a while.
When I was a child I thought like a child - yeah Winter is here...but when I became a Man I thought like a Man - Ok, Winter is here.
We all grow up and as we grow older we learn that there is more complexities than certainties.
November is the month of the first winter storms. Some of these are called Witches Storm because they involve intense low pressure systems that have extremes of cold air to the north and warm air still lingering in the south and they have been known to create disastrous results. In 1991 a massive storm dropped almost 40 inches of snow in the first four days of November. It was called the Halloween Blizzard because it began on October 31st. It was in November, in 1975 that the ship "the Edmund Fitzgerald" sank during a storm on Lake Superior.
November is a complex month.
I love November for other less stressful reasons. The shorter days ease me into peaceful evenings at home. More music, coffee, yes, but also apple cider, hot chocolate, baking, squash dishes, roasted dinners in the oven that warm the house, fires in the fireplace, books, and yes...the beginning of Hallmark's holiday movies.
November is a complex month.
Much like our lives, we live with uncertainties and ambiguities...with things that we enjoy and things that frustrate and make life difficult.
I Pastor a church of people I love dearly...like me, their lives are complex. There are uncertainties and ambiguities enough to go around and around.
Like Scripture there are people who one day thrill you and the next make you shake your ahead. Complex. Like us. We're not that good at controlling anything. We'd like to think we are, but Scripture reminds us that we also are complex...full of uncertainties and ambiguities...
2 Corinthians 4:6-8
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
There's only one antidote to this... the Grace of God that both keeps us and sustains us through our complex living.
Peace
There's always a certain thrill and sadness for me when I realize that Wisconsin's first snow (Nov. 16th average) is going to last for at least 4 months of time. The first snow seems so beautiful but it also means our days of t shirts are over for a while.
When I was a child I thought like a child - yeah Winter is here...but when I became a Man I thought like a Man - Ok, Winter is here.
We all grow up and as we grow older we learn that there is more complexities than certainties.
November is the month of the first winter storms. Some of these are called Witches Storm because they involve intense low pressure systems that have extremes of cold air to the north and warm air still lingering in the south and they have been known to create disastrous results. In 1991 a massive storm dropped almost 40 inches of snow in the first four days of November. It was called the Halloween Blizzard because it began on October 31st. It was in November, in 1975 that the ship "the Edmund Fitzgerald" sank during a storm on Lake Superior.
November is a complex month.
I love November for other less stressful reasons. The shorter days ease me into peaceful evenings at home. More music, coffee, yes, but also apple cider, hot chocolate, baking, squash dishes, roasted dinners in the oven that warm the house, fires in the fireplace, books, and yes...the beginning of Hallmark's holiday movies.
November is a complex month.
Much like our lives, we live with uncertainties and ambiguities...with things that we enjoy and things that frustrate and make life difficult.
I Pastor a church of people I love dearly...like me, their lives are complex. There are uncertainties and ambiguities enough to go around and around.
Like Scripture there are people who one day thrill you and the next make you shake your ahead. Complex. Like us. We're not that good at controlling anything. We'd like to think we are, but Scripture reminds us that we also are complex...full of uncertainties and ambiguities...
2 Corinthians 4:6-8
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
There's only one antidote to this... the Grace of God that both keeps us and sustains us through our complex living.
Peace
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