A Love Letter to Winter

finding grace in Cornell’s least favorite season

By: Katherine Becking

This article is part of the Claritas fall 2024 issue, Margins. Read the full print release here.

A Change of Perspective 

Cornell is full of complainers, of whom I am the foremost. We complain about dining hall food, walking up the slope, papers, professors, prelims, and dorms without air conditioning. But I have found no complaint more universal than grumbling about cold weather. Ithaca winters are almost unanimously anticipated with dread, greeted with disgust, and endured with impatience. The cold months are long, and inconvenient snow adds to the stress of our rigorous academic schedules. Long walks to class become painful in freezing wind. Some unlucky students slip on black ice. Ominous clouds bring a pervasive gloom to campus.

These grievances are all legitimate. Like many Cornellians, I experience seasonal depression. But in spite of this, winter remains my favorite season. Yes, the cozy aspects of winter are charming—hot chocolate, thick sweaters, crackling fires, sparkling Christmas trees—but it’s not small comforts that make me look forward to these months. The best part of winter is, by far, the very snow that makes the season so unbearable to some people. Snow transforms the world and teaches us countless lessons in grace. If for a moment, we set aside our complaints and examine winter with fresh eyes, we will see that God reveals His character to us through even this harshest part of the year.

God’s World

When I first glance out the window on a January day to discover the effects of last night’s snowfall, I am struck by how complete it is. It covers everything, at least before the snow plows arrive. Grass lawns, wide winding roads, towering oak trees, and shingled roofs are all connected by an icy white blanket. Icicles shine from the eaves of each house, and snowy lines trace the branches of every tree. My generic suburban neighborhood has become bright and inviting.

Most of the time, I unconsciously separate the landscape into two parts. There is the natural world, made by God, and there is the built environment we inhabit, made by people. God designed the trees and grass with love and artistry. We built the houses and roads with a desire for convenience and cost-efficiency. The forest, in all its vibrance and splendor, is the Lord’s. The interstate, with its obnoxious billboards and asphalt monotony, belongs to us.

But snow shatters the illusion that the commonplace things we make are exempt from the Creator’s redeeming touch. Thankfully, it is impossible to carve out a piece of the world and live on it apart from the One who made it. God lays claim to the entire landscape, including the ugly concrete parts I didn’t think He would want. He grants the pothole-ridden streets a measure of divine beauty for a few hours, clothing them in gleaming light and erasing the artificial categories I have imposed. I am reminded that all of it—the forest and the interstate and everything in between—is God’s world.

Community Service 

Snow not only unites the natural and man-made landscapes, it also brings communities together by giving us an opportunity to love our physical neighbors. I remember several childhood snowstorms in which my parents helped our neighbors shovel streets and sidewalks. In high school, I had the same service opportunity thrust upon me. A friend and I were walking around outside on a snow day when her mother approached, giant shovels in hand. She pointed us to a house down the street, which belonged to a woman whose husband was deployed for military service. My friend and I trudged over and began to clear the sidewalk. Inwardly, I grumbled about having to do manual labor. I wanted my snow day to myself. After a few minutes, however, the neighbor came outside with a huge smile on her face to thank us for making her day a little easier. I started to realize the unique opportunity we had been given to surprise her with an act of kindness. It’s so easy to ignore our neighbors most of the time. We can spend years just a few houses apart but never interact. In this age when many people feel disconnected from physical communities, snowstorms give us a rare chance not only to meet neighbors, but to serve them. 

A Blank Slate

On a more personal level, snow can remind us of the endless possibilities that exist for our lives. After I tear myself away from the window, I take a few deep steps outside into the blank canvas of a world. Glittering snow stretches out before me, muffling the sounds of my rustling and crunching. Traffic is muted and far away; the icy breeze barely whispers. All around is silence and tranquil nothingness. As I take in the vast empty space, I feel my mind start to clear. The snow dispels my every regret and painful memory, leaving only potential. I could build anything here. I stoop down and shape a single white sphere with my gloved hands. Just as the Lord’s mercies are new every morning, snow is a fresh start. Its purity symbolizes Christ’s righteousness that becomes ours when we put our trust in Him.

Living in the Present

For many people, snow also represents fun. Those of us who grew up in cold regions can recall the gleeful delight of waking up to a snow day and rushing outside to enjoy the frosty weather. My grade school snow days were usually spent waging elaborate snowball fights with neighborhood friends and daring each other to sled down the steepest hills. These have become some of my most cherished childhood memories.

Big snowstorms can bring back this childlike sense of carefree joy. A few years ago, Cornell gave us a once-in-a-college-experience snow day, interrupting our normal rhythms of life with an opportunity to play. The rational adult in me said that I should use the extra time to get ahead on my homework. Instead, I decided to accept the day as the gift it was. I went sledding with friends and marveled at the campus’s transfiguration into a winter wonderland. When night fell, I stood alone at the top of the slope as my breath came out in frozen clouds. I looked down on the twinkling lights of Ithaca and felt like I was seven years old again in the tiny northern town where I was born. I used to lie under the stars on mountains of snow, overwhelmed with wonder, wishing I was a polar bear so I would never have to go inside. Too often, now that I am older, wonder gets drowned out by daily academic demands and anxieties about the future, even though I am constantly surrounded by natural grandeur. But something about snow makes it easier for me to forget about tomorrow. I am able to live in the moment and enjoy God’s provision for the day.

Light in Darkness

We haven’t yet reckoned with the barren, snowless days of winter and the hopelessness this season can instill. But even this has something to teach us. It is one of the best demonstrations of God’s redemptive power that the created world has to offer.

It’s November in Ithaca. The brilliantly colored autumn leaves have gone, leaving jagged gray branches in their place. School is overwhelming. The sky is gray. The ground is gray. I start to think that even the people look gray. I walk slowly up steep hills and can’t remember last week. Each day is marginally darker, and the inexorable retreat of daylight feels like a weight pulling down on my ribs.

Then one day, soft flakes descend from the clouds. Soon my vision is flooded with blinding white light. The sky is electric blue, and I can’t stop smiling. The world is teeming with joy! Life seems worth living again. And I recognize that it had to be dark and cold so that this astonishing beauty could be possible. 

I have one of those sun lamps that Cornell students commonly use in the winter. It’s a small rectangle of white light, and sitting in its glow for twenty minutes each day alleviates some symptoms of seasonal depression. When there is snow on the ground, the world effectively turns into a giant version of the sun lamp, reflecting beams of light into our gloomy hearts from every possible angle. It’s so bright that you have to wear sunglasses, so bright that you can get a sunburn under your chin. Before humanity invented the sun lamp, before we even knew we needed it, God built this treatment for seasonal depression into nature. His mercy knows no bounds.

I am in awe of the Creator who designed this pattern of winter. To me, snowfall is a reflection of the Gospel. Winter is a time of death and reminds us of Christ’s death on the cross. Snow, then, represents the glory visible in the crucifixion, even before the springtime joy of the resurrection. Just as snow, the most beautiful event in the natural world, only occurs during the darkest and most depressing part of the year, Christ’s priceless love for us is most fully revealed in the suffering He endured on our behalf. Every moment He spent in pain proves a little more the extent of His care for us. His tears became like snowflakes—intricate crystals forged from darkness, compounding and accumulating to lay a new work of art over the old creation, giving the world depth and radiance by allowing us to see all of it through the lens of His love. Everywhere we turn, we are surrounded by thick blankets of grace. We can dance in its flurries and roll in its fluffy banks. What kind of God makes His own pain a reason to rejoice? What kind of Lord uses His death to create new life?

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

           and the light about me be night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is bright as the day,

           for darkness is as light with you. [1]

Epilogue

If winter still isn’t your favorite season, I get it. But I hope I’ve given you some reasons to praise the Lord even in the biting cold and bitter darkness. When snow blocks the roads, remember in humility that God is sovereign over everything we build. When you have to shovel a sidewalk someday, shovel your neighbor’s too, and thank God for the chance to serve them. When the world grinds to a halt, go outside and play. And when you can’t shake the feelings of fatigue and hopelessness, hold on to the fact that Jesus suffered this much and more because He loves you. Wait for spring. It will come.

Source

[1] Psalm 139:11-12 (ESV)