I have found it difficult to think about doing certain tasks during this season of life, a season marked by joy and sadness, not unlike when you look out your Michigan window and see warm sunshine casting a shadow on a thermometer that reads -4 degrees. The sadness is for a friend who has experienced a deep tragedy, the kind of scenario that would be portrayed as the worst possible. The joy is from the stuff of Jesus, “the joy of the Lord is our strength”, and is far different from happiness. Right now, I’m not happy. I mourn for friends and for other small tragedies unwinding in my own life, and its made our hearts heavy. Heavy doesn’t like happy. But joy abounds in heavy. This is the beauty of God’s grace, that in the coldest of winters the sun still shines, echoing a distant promise of spring.