Winter Holds On
Winter holds on - my times and seasons frozen in its grasp - refusing to break until the mighty Voice speaks His command.
Yet the One who governs the seasons waits—for He is not quite ready to give the order.
“North winds,” He whispers, "Don’t relent just yet. Her song right now is just too sweet to My heart.”
He turns to the angels that watch with wonder and says,
“She will only sing like this a few times before she finally sees My face. I’m not ready, just yet, for her song to change.”
And then the Maker and Husband goes on, speaking as He watches (Is. 54:5),
“She sits alone now, stripped and bare, her future uncertain, her confidence little. Hear the piercing quality of that song, sweetened with tears?
She only has Me right now. She sings with that quality and singularity that one only sings when they’ve no second plan, no escape route.”
He pauses.
“I can’t bear to lift the winds just yet. So few sing without offense here. So few know My heart well enough to sing without bitterness here. It’s for Me she sings. She’s no other audience now.”
Back to the north winds He turns and says again to their holding pattern,
“Not just yet. For I am the Keeper of the seasons, and it is My delight to bring the dawn, to bring the warm south winds and the spring. I will do it for I am faithful and I’ve promised. But for a moment, I desire this delay to remain. Not a moment more than love will allow and not beyond where grace will surround, yet just a little longer for the sake of My heart. Her song is at its sweetest pitch right now, and she’s singing some of her finest words there all alone. Words born by fire. Prayers forged through testing. She feels alone, and knows the pain therein, yet all the while, she wouldn’t sing so beauifully if she did not believe in the deep of her that I in fact hear and cherish every word.
She knows Me well enough to know how moved I am by her piercing song.
The extravagance and trust in her song wounds My great heart and I’m undone by the sweetness of her confidence. Her heart is unoffended. It’s because My heart is so moved that I linger another moment.
She even trusts Me enough to trust the lingering in this delay. She trusts Me to know her better than she knows herself. For when she is sure I have waited too long, she cleaves to trust in My heart and in My wisdom. Love does such things. And how she loves Me in her covenant of trust, so extravagant.
Her song will change. It will leave the present tones of heartache and desperation and join the choruses of praise and exuberance. In the day of rejoicing, she will keep singing. And how I will sing with her and rejoice in her song then also (Ps. 30:11).
But just for a moment I will wait. I will let her sing those last words and spill her heart, hanging vulnerable, just a few more times. For her sake, yes. For great is her reward forever (Heb. 11:6). But it is just as truly for My own heart that I delay just a little longer. For the fellowship here that she finds with Me and the suffering that she embraces for the sake of love, I wait (Phil. 3:10).
I wait that I might hear the song of the heart of love, in the space of the age of faith, unoffended and pure, open and trusting, refined and so breathtaking.
She has ravished My heart with her song (Song. 4:9).
North winds, just a little longer, for the sake of My heart.”