Hey people, let’s not deceive ourselves – it’s brutally cold out there!

My wife, Lily, opened the blinds this morning and was very cheery. “Ah, the sun is shining”, she said, as if that made everything alright.

She made her comment like she was ready to take a magazine out to the deck and catch some rays as she relaxed in a lawn chair.

“It’s minus 22 Celsius out there”, I said.

Lily’s rebuttal was that it reminded her of Edmonton winters where the sun was the consolation for surviving weeks on end of needing a balaclava when you stepped outside the front door of your home.

She went as far as saying she would rather have -20 C and sunny than -4 C and dreary.

Give me the dreary! If we have to go another week with these temperatures, I’ll be done with winter big time!

I’m not sure why Lily has been so hypnotized by the sun’s power, or it could have nothing to do with the sun at all.

It may have more to do with the old coat she rediscovered last night.

We went out for dinner and Lily decided to wear a fur coat – that’s right, it’s fur, and it’s probably seal too.

But don’t get too upset at her owning a fur coat. It’s a hand-me-down from my grandmother. I figure that coat is probably between 70 and 90 years old.

When I was just a kid, I remember my grandmother wearing it to church when she came to visit us on weekends. My brother, John, and I made sure we sat on either side of her during church.

Besides the little purple candies she would give us, it was really sitting beside that coat of hers that was the treat. It was, and still is, the softest coat you will ever touch. It’s unbelievable. We would snuggle right up to her just to feel that fur.

You can’t stop touching it.

But I digress. Maybe the reason Lily doesn’t mind the cold is that this coat is the warmest coat she’s ever put on. She didn’t care how long it took us to walk from the car to the restaurant; she was toasty.

… I, on the other hand, was freezing and couldn’t wait to get inside.

Maybe she thinks she is impervious to the cold with this coat, I don’t know.

All I’m saying is let’s not be deceived or brainwashed by the sunny days, thinking that it’s okay that we are living in temperatures that would make a polar bear want to travel south for a vacation.

We weren’t planning on taking a winter vacation but now I’m entertaining the idea … and the longer this cold snap – sun and all – stays with us, the more the price of the trip doesn’t matter to me.

Let’s just all agree on one thing: it is crazy cold out there, and there is nothing good about it.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we can get fixated on one thing so that something else doesn’t seem to be that bad. Maybe you struggle with a certain sin but, instead of dealing with it, you look to something good you are doing as if that cancels out the sin. To God, sin is missing the mark and, no matter how close to the mark you are in another area, you’re still missing the mark. Deal with the sin in front of you. Don’t mask it, justify it, or ignore it; just confess it and turn from it.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to deal with? Leave your comments below.