The longest day of the year. That’s what they call today. Winter.
Dark. Even darker than the usual darkness of this Northwest tip of the nation I live in; the one where artists and creatives are born, and legends are formed by the emotion of winter.
The valley, where trees block the sun, dark clouds hide the moon, and moments turn slowly as the world spins unaccompanied by celebration or enthusiasm.
Artificial lights reflect off the man-made glass, while the world remains still, frozen over, anticipating some change, so we might live and move and have our being.
Spring birds have stopped flying. Leaves have fallen. Limbs stripped barren, remain vulnerable to whatever nature might bring.
And yet, I sit and wait, as if the wheels inside me crank ever so slowly, finding comfort in L.E.D.’s, built to provide longer lasting, more sustainable light, in this darkness we live in.
I long for the outdoors but my bones seem to burn from the skin-snapping cold, unapologentically stinking…
And where do we go for refuge when winter comes? When the facades and our coverings have fallen from the storm?
We were gifted two bee colonies last spring. Tall, rising. A refuge, from our friends.
Apple and pear trees scatter around our property have been aching for polination, so the timing was perfect.
But then, a terrible storm hit. Wind carried away their coverings.
Rain didn’t stop for days. And floods covered our roads so much so, we couldn’t drive safely on them…
The rain drowned out our bees hives too.
And the once cozy home of our fuzy friends, was abandoned. These man-made colonies now exploited and exposed, were made unhabitable, due to natures unbiased cruelty.
And yet, as I wake on this not so magical day, where we get to breathe in only seven hours of light, I open my eyes and see chunks of large wax laying above a bowl full of honey.
Patient man, the one that I locked my life with twenty-eight years ago, used his ingenuity to create a make-ship straining system.
Because…
Even in the dead of winter, God gives us a harvest.
A harvest, of sweetness left behind. A harvest of hope in dark times. A harvest waiting to nourish our aching bones, bitter from the cold and this world we stand on in uncertainty.
I have heard some say, “God has forsaken us”. As stores fill with looters, grabbing handfuls of merchandise then walking brazenly past us; I see the waiting…
As anger fills the unrighteous and bitterness entrenches in the cells and hollow places we haven’t given over to Jesus…
I awaken to sweetened honey. Hives overflowing with a present, given back to us by nature, handed over as a gift despite the raining that makes the brave abandon their facilities.
When Patient Man first extracted the honey, he strained it just naturally, with big, kitchen equipment. Because we are not farmers, and honey is still sweet even if there is some wax in it.
But, then we found out…
Honey, like us, needs to be strained and then strained again.
Money isn’t flowing like the floodwaters we used to experience, and so we hesitated to pay for supplies to purify our honey.
But, my husband found a method to divide the wax and etible sweetness.
Slowly, over the long hours of night, when darkness is as black as black can get, honey flowed slowly through the invisible holes and right into the waiting bowl…
Purifying what we would eat, even in our sleep.
While night was black and day would be even darker than any other throughout the year, the purification process was working.
And I wonder, if God is doing a similar work in us?
Does He not only allow the darkness, but use the solstice of our lives to purify us in patience?
Does the refining only makes us sweeter? And do the limbs of our lives become barren, so that we can become more authentic, more beautiful to Him?
As I watch the thick mess drip almost microscopically through the cheese cloth, I wonder at the goodness of God. And how…
Even in the dead of winter, God still provides for us.
He gives us a harvest that won’t run dry.
Our garage is filled with many more screens of honey. And my mind is grateful local honey heals us from locally derived allergies.
The bees that fled actually left a blessing of abundance. A medicine. A remedy.
We don’t need to be beggars when the God of heaven is by our side.
When righteousness drips from our lives and warms the depths of our bellies. When honestly and virtue and goodness flood us by His Spirit…
God goes before His people. And…
A harvest is on its way.
A harvest so big, we can’t explain in with human understanding.
A harvest so wide, we can’t justify the wax of humanity to be mixed with it.
We must strain out our lives.
We must understand the floods are not His cursing, but a blessing that God has given us to fill our empty fields will fertile silt, running over from the rivers.
Downed trees and stormy nights only push what is living out of the dark, wooded territory. Darkness forces us towards the light.
And God is leaving behind, not only a people who are filled with purpose, but a sweet blessing that comes because He never leaves us…
Where He dwells, His sweetness follows.
They say we’ll only get seven hours of daylight today. They say, we are going through the darkest of winters.
And yet…A report is on its way.
Snow is coming.
It is coming to fill the land. It is coming to wash away the muddied roads, and bring a quietness upon the land, that no one can quite explain.
Snow will bring stillness and peace. It will cover what was dirty and make it white with snow.
And yet, as the land turns from dark to reflecting white wherever we go; our storeroom will be overflowing with honey.
And yours can be too. If you look to The One that formed you. If you trust the God who can deliver you. If you purify your life like honey…
Grace is with you. And sweetness will reign.
A harvest is on it’s way. And a washing.
Nothing can stop our Jesus. Not even the dead of winter.
“So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ~ Exodus 3:8
