Today is the day after the winter solstice, which means that last night was the longest night of the year.  Congratulations, you’ve made it through!  But today is also the first full day of winter, which means there is still a long ways to go:  through long nights, and grey days, and chilly, damp weather, before we get through to spring.

This feels like our situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, doesn’t it?  Or maybe some personal challenge you’re dealing with?  We keep going through landmarks that feel like they ought to signal that we’re through with it, but again and again we find, while we might be through the worst of it, we’re still not really through.

It’s dis-spiriting.  It’s hard to think that more is still asked of us or that we have more to give.  But look at that word again, “through.”  It doesn’t actually mean the end, it describes the journey.  To be “through” means to have gone through.  We cannot wish away life’s hardships; we have to go through them.  We have to do the work, take the journey.

And we can!  Look at all you’ve already gone through!  Grief and hardship, like Winter, are not a day, or one long night.  It’s a season.  But taking our time, moving slowly, letting one day follow another, eventually we come through to Spring.