I don’t know about you but I am less fond of February than of any other month. I am not a winter person. Give me sunshine and gentle breezes anytime over gloomy skies and snow. I realize many people love to ski and enjoy winter sports but I am not one of them, so when February comes around I am all about leaving town and going someplace warm.

But where is it warm? We really can’t plan ahead too far because sometimes it is just as cold in Florida as it is in New Jersey or at least not warm enough to entice me. I want to be where I do not need to huddle against the wind and wear gloves.

Of course, I understand in the big picture we need to have freezing weather to keep the bugs and critters from overtaking us but I am quite happy if it is limited to one week and doesn’t involve snow at all. Over the last way too many years I have been asked if I want to go to our church’s family winter retreat in the mountains. No. I do not want to pay money to ride hours in a bus to a cold location just to sit inside the lodge. I have never been to a ski resort and neither is it on my wish list.

I know, I know, God does make all the different seasons and weather to bring beauty to the entire earth but some of us make a point to avoid the seasons we like least. We have friends from Minnesota who snowbird in Arizona. I knew a family that left the shore in the summer to go to the Poconos. So there is no one right place for all of us. Thankfully.

I was born near Pittsburgh but I knew at a very young age that I was meant to be near warmth and water.  How I knew I can’t say but my sisters love it back home and only my youngest brother and I left to hit the shore for beaches and sunshine. It is a blessing to have so many diverse places to live and visit.

God gives us a small taste here on earth of what it was like in the beginning when Adam and Eve were in the garden. Because of sin we can no longer have that perfect place – whatever it looked like. In my mind it included everything from a sunny shore to snowcapped mountain peaks but we just don’t know. What we do know is that as God created the world and all that is in it He stopped each day and declared it good.

If God said it was good we can believe the earth and all that was in it was good. Ah, that we could just go back to that perfect place again. But, we have come way too far for a return to Eden. Some days when I am reading the news I ponder if the world has already skidded half way into perdition.

We see horrible pictures and hear awful news of events near and far. Possibly in our own neighborhoods.  We see the very stirrings of Satan in the madness of what is unfolding across the globe. But, never fear, God wins. 

Every time I read of another stadium packed with beautiful young people from the following generations giving their lives over to Jesus and promising to do His work on earth, I see what is most important. We seldom if ever read of these events in the broad-spectrum media because doom and gloom sells ads and Jesus is out of style right now with those who deem themselves the gurus of what we need to know. How sad. We could all use an uplift to our souls by hearing the good news about what is happening because of the Good News of Jesus.

So many young lives are changing. So many of those who have never attended church have become hungry for something and someone that stands for truth and that would be Jesus Christ. Friends of ours have been praying for their never-churched grandchildren and recently shared that the in-school club of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) has a new member – their grandson. His cross-country running friends asked if he wanted to attend and now he is very excited about knowing and learning of Jesus – at 15 years old. Just when we think they may be lost Jesus reaches out to find them. Halleluiah and amen!

Even when the days of earth seem so very dark, the light of our Savior Jesus Christ is there to brighten our lives with the truth that Jesus saves. He is the light in our dark, dark world.

ED. NOTE: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City. Email her at writerGoodGod@gmail.com.