The Winter Seasons of Ministry
By Kellye Carmack
Winter is perhaps the harshest of seasons. Depending on where you live, winter can be bitter, dark, even brutal. My childhood winters in New York were just that. I remember my sister and I bundling up in layers and snow suits just to go outside. The snow and wind would cut across our cheeks in cold, sharp stings. Mountains of snow lined our street as snowplows slowly made their way around our neighborhood. The harsh weather seemed to make many mundane tasks a little harder and take a little longer. Winter meant months of scraping ice-covered windshields, shoveling sidewalks with aching fingers, and shielding our faces from harsh blasts of frigid winter air.
Winter can be a dark and hard season. Do you ever feel like you have similar seasons in ministry? Seasons when there is less light and more darkness? When you feel like you are getting hit with bitter winds that make you want to retreat to the warmth of another, more pleasant time? Perhaps, you have the added weights of sickness, family conflict, or national unrest that are piling up like snow and ice on top of your already heavy workload. You are exhausted before you even start your normal ministry work. Maybe this hard season of ministry feels like it’s slowly dragging like a long winter’s day. You are left feeling drained, perhaps even depressed.
How can we see God’s goodness in the dark winter seasons of life and ministry? Think about the goodness and beauty that we see in the season of winter. While it brings a harshness like no other season, winter offers a beauty that is incomparable. The sight of snowflakes pouring from a gray sky and covering the earth fills us with wonder like nothing else. The warmth of a cozy fire while sipping hot drinks on a cold night offers us a deeper rest than we often experience. Winter slows down our busy lives to a quieter, more peaceful pace that allows us to savor God’s goodness more fully.
In the harshest season of the year we find wonder, deep rest, peace, time to savor. These gifts wouldn’t exist without the harsh elements of the season, and our winters in ministry are no different. Perhaps those gifts in ministry are not as visible as the glittering white landscape you see out your window on a snowy winter’s day. Most of the time we can’t see them in the moment, but when the season is over, we can look back and say with the Psalmist, “It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statues. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” (Psalm 119:70-71 ESV)
Through your affliction, God wants to give you something more valuable than thousands of pieces of gold and silver. He wants to give you more of Himself. And that may only come through the hard circumstances. It’s often in the harshest seasons of life that God reveals His power and faithfulness in a beautiful design that draws us to wonder and worship.
Kellye is the Women’s Ministry Director for Practical Shepherding Women’s Ministry. She has an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies and a master’s degree in Biblical Counseling. She served as a missionary in Western Europe for two years helping to share the hope of Christ with women in difficult situations. While in seminary, she met her husband Craig who is an associate pastor at their church in Louisville, KY. She loves helping women discover the unique ways God has gifted them to serve the church.