WHAT WINTER ASKS OF US
by Jocelyn Watkins, 2026 Illinois/Wisconsin District moderator
“Be patient, therefore… until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth.” (James 5:7)
“I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6)
February finds us settled firmly into winter. The ground is frozen. The landscape is sparse. Much of what is alive is hidden from view, held beneath the surface, waiting out the season in quiet restraint.
Scripture speaks to this rhythm of time and waiting. “For everything there is a season,” Ecclesiastes tells us, naming timing itself as part of God’s design. James echoes that wisdom when he writes about the patience of the farmer, who waits for what the earth will yield in its own time.
When Paul writes his second letter to Timothy, he writes to someone living in a season not unlike winter. Timothy carries responsibility at a time when growth feels slow and resistance is strong, when leadership requires endurance more than visibility. Paul himself writes from prison, cut off from movement and momentum, aware that his own days may be drawing to a close. The work of faith continues, but it does so under the weight of cold, confinement, and uncertainty.
In that setting, Paul does not tell Timothy to force what is not ready. He does not urge him to overwater the soil or dig up what has been planted to check for signs of life. Instead, he reminds Timothy that the gift of God is already within him. Rekindling, Paul suggests, comes through care and nearness, through staying close enough for warmth to be shared. What is alive does not need to be rushed into visibility. It needs to be tended through the season it is in.
I wonder if seeds, roots, and bulbs know something about this kind of faith. Buried in dark, frozen ground, they are not idle, even though nothing about their work is visible. Growth takes a different form here. Life holds itself quietly, conserving energy until the season turns.
Across our district, this kind of faithfulness is already being lived. Congregations gather with what they have. People place food on tables, hands on shoulders, prayers into familiar spaces. Stories move quietly between the hands that carried them before us and the hands that will carry them after. These practices may seem ordinary, but they hold warmth. They keep the fire alive through long seasons.
In seasons like this, faith often settles into the work of staying. It shows up in small, repeated acts of care, in the choice to remain present when movement is slow and outcomes are uncertain. Faith, like the land, is shaped by seasons we cannot rush. In living this kind of faith together, we learn a posture for our shared life; a way of standing that honors time, memory, and patience, trusting that what is being tended beneath the surface is not lost simply because it is slow.
February seems to ask for that kind of posture. To stay close. To resist scattering what still gives warmth. Fires endure when embers are drawn near, sharing heat through long nights rather than burning brightly and fast.
If there is something in your congregation that feels tender right now, perhaps it is enough to remain with it. To listen. To tend. To trust that God is at work beneath the surface, shaping life in ways that honor the season we are in.
(2026 logo designed by Madalyn Metzger)
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