But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.” Malachi 4:2

One morning in early October I was sitting at my desk looking out over the backyard. Coffee cup in hand, I watched as the sun made its way over the hill behind the house. The grass was white when the sun first made its appearance, but as the sun moved higher in the sky I noticed that the grass that was still in the shadow was white with frost, while the grass that had been in contact with the sun was green.

As the sun moved higher, the shadow continued its retreat. The white frost disappeared, and green grass silently moved forward across the lawn until it completely overtook the frost. The warmth of the sun defeated the coldness of the frost.

As I watched the sun move across the sky that day, and the frost disappear, I thought about how the dark days of winter are often symbolic of those times in our life when life itself seems disappointing, frustrating, full of fear and gloom. When spring comes, we enjoy the new life of flowers and leaves and warmer days.

The message of the sun and the frost has a two-fold meaning for us in our spiritual and emotional lives. There are times when life is frosty. Those times when we seek a little warmth to refresh our souls. Its no wonder that at creation, the first thing God created was light. No surprise that Jesus proclaimed he was the light of the world. Just as the grass needed the SUN to remove the frostiness in the yard, we need the SON to shine through the gloom to restore us.

The second lesson of the frost is perhaps the most difficult for us. Just as the sun took some time to remove the frost, it takes time to remove the frost in our lives. It takes patience. It takes trust that the SON will do its job. The healing we need is a process that is unique for all of us. I may heal slower than you. My wounds may take longer for the warmth of Jesus to restore.

One last thought. Maybe, just maybe, God is calling you to be the warmth in someone’s frostiness. Perhaps you’ve experienced the warmth of the SON in your life and you can patiently and gracefully encourage someone to know the shadows shrink, the sun rises, healing is available through Jesus, the SON.