Oh this cold!!

So the cold season is here. And with it comes all manner of discomfort. There's the uncomfortable feeling of feeling really cold, to the bones. Which calls to wearing numerous heavy attire to keep warm, which, for me, is quite uncomfortable. Then there's the issue of flus and colds. The ailments that come like some sort of pandaemic to almost everyone one such a time.

Truth be told, I don't like cold. Infact, I hate cold. I hate the cold feeling, the sore throats and flus, the dressing up to feel warm. Not forgetting having to gobble mugs of hot fluids just to keep warm, then ending up having to make trips to the bathroom every so often. I hate everything about the cold. I moan and wail almost every day, all day, during the cold season. At times I feel like the world would be a  better place without cold.

Inasmuch as I don't like the cold, I do realize that it has a purpose. I'm yet to figure out what it is, but I know God does everything for a time and a purpose. So I realize that, in one way or another, I do need it. God, in His infinite knowledge, works out great stuff in my life thru cold. I don't know what the great stuff is, but I also realize that God at times works in ways we can't see, and can't understand.

So as I barely tolerate this cold, I get to realize that it's not for nothing. I get thru the colds and flus not necessarily excited, but knowing that there's a reason for all this.

Still Waiting

The wilderness experience can be very challenging. It is the point where everything is dry and unproductive. It's the point of uncertainty, a time when you don't know whether anything really works. It's a point where you're stuck between yesterday and tomorrow, where you've been and where you are going.

The worst part of the wilderness experience is the waiting. Waiting for the unknown. Will it get better as we go by? Will the rains come? Will the drought ever end? Every minute is spent waiting, hoping, crying, looking, clinging to faith... believing that, when all is said and done, the experience will be over, the rains will fall and everything will be OK.

Things get out of hand when the waiting becomes too much. When the wilderness experience has gone too far. When the rains fail for way too long, the sun's rays become torturously unbearable, and the earth seems unproductive. Times like these, faith is tested to the limits (more like stretched to almost snapping point), everything looks bleak and deadly.

Times like these, faith is tested to the limits. What you once believed looks unreal, false to be precise. Waiting seems like a fallacy, everything seems to have betrayed. Strangely, the best remedy in such periods is patience. Patience that all will end well. Look beyond the obvious, realize that nothing lasts forever. Everything is temporary, no matter how long it takes.

God surely hasn't forgotten about you, no matter how long you've been waiting. And the best part is this: The best fruit takes the longest to ripen, and the greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward. So if you're waiting, keep on, God hasn't forgotten.