Well it’s 40 below and I don’t really care because the stove is cookin’ hot and the sky is clear. I don’t recall it being this cold on a christmas day… ever… but maybe…
We’ve been running about 10 degrees below normal for the last couple of months but so what? Easy for a guy to say who has gotten rather lazy and homebound, with but few exceptions, since winter tea-bagged us all.
Some reminiscing follows, skip it if you like lol:
When I first made my way up the Alaska Highway in ’79 I stopped at a campground and saw some blocks of wood cut in stove-length and it struck me that they couldn’t have just grown like that. Someone must have cut them. Hey! Maybe I could do that… True Story! Coming from the bald prairies I was unfamiliar with chainsaws, bucking wood and all that even at my then 19 years!! Amazing huh?
And no wizened white-bearded old guy was standing there to tell me I would be spending hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades cutting the darn stuff, getting injured by it, and enjoying the warmth of it 40 years later but here I am all the same.
There is another source of warmth I have to tell you about and the timing seems appropriate.
As a young farm boy, I once stole a cookie when my mom’s back was turned and my conscience ate me later like an juicy apple until I had to confess to my mom. She explained that we have all made mistakes like that. It’s called sin and my sins have been paid for by the Son of God and all I have to do is pray and ask this Jesus into my heart and he “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
Well that seemed simple enough and I have never once regretted the decision. The next morning I felt different somehow, like I was a different person, and although my trail is long and sadly littered with “mistakes” of many kinds, I have a warmth and a joy of life inside somewhere which the even the coldest christmases and the darkest and most painful events of my life have yet to take from me.
So there you have it: the warmth of a cozy fire in 40 below and the warm love of the Creator as shown to us by the overwhelming gift of his only Son. And I wish you a heaping helping of both kinds of warmth this Christmas my friends!!!
Fishermen are the best people!
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