The garden is in. Admittedly, it's a bit modest this year compared to last year's efforts, but it should be sufficient for our purposes.

The buffalo grass has greened up for the fifth year in a row and my new irises are in full bloom.

Spring.

I didn't think I'd make it.

I'm going to call my affliction cabin fever for lack of a better term, and now that I can look at it in retrospect, it seems suitable. Not only was it too cold to venture outside to trim back the winter kill on my annuals, it was too cold to move around comfortably in the house. Former vice president Al Gore would be proud of the energy saving efforts we have made through the years, but even with all of that, the thermostat setting is still the governing factor in how much energy you're going to consume. And we keep ours relatively low. (I don't think Al does, however. An independent news outlet released information earlier this year on Al's energy consumption and for a "green guy" he's sure burns up the kilowatts.)

When the warmer days arrived, I was hard-pressed to stay down, wrapped in a quilt, cradling a hot cup of tea in both hands. Curtains came down to be mended, laundered, pressed and rehung. Hard water deposits disappeared in the bathtub. Kitchen cabinets gleamed and dust was banished -- at least until it settled again.

I was glad to see the waning days of winter. Spring was a long time coming. I've been taking advantage of it at every opportunity. After all, summer is just around the corner.

Anticipation. Expect-ation. These two emotions can nearly stop a clock and freeze the calendar. In fact, they can immobilize us. We wait for this. Then that. When we have this, then we will do that. We can spend our entire lifetime waiting.

There is a danger there. Throughout the winter, I waited for warm days. And waited, and waited and waited. The problem with winter waiting is the lack of anything constructive to do while waiting. Small wonder then, that so many chores awaited me when the weather finally turned.

Believers are waiting. Some patiently. Some not so patiently, but all are waiting nonetheless. In fact, Scripture encourages us to wait and to watch, because we though we do not know the day nor the hour, we do know our Savior lives and will return.

Sometimes, I admit, it feels like perpetual winter while I wait. One storm follows another. The war rages on with no honorable end in sight. The border remains wide open while Washington tries to come up with an honorable solution to the presence of some 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country. Madmen shoot fellow students, co-workers or rivals in the name of romance. It's too dark, too cold, to foreboding to be up and about, accomplishing something of worth while I wait.

Shelters from these incessant storms are far and few between and sparsely populated. Everyone is so busy dealing with the wolf at their own door, disguised as rising fuel prices, rising food prices or tainted food imported from far off lands, that they have precious little energy left with which to share a word of encouragement -- if they could find one that rings true.

Perpetual winter, cold and solitary. It threatens each of us with spiritual apathy and emotional depression.

There is danger there.

Because even in the bleakest storm, in the midst of gale force winds, with ice and snow piling up, there is much work to be done. And it is of such vital importance that we dare not put off until tomorrow what needs must be done today.

We must be that word of encouragement. We must be that shelter in the storm. We must be light in the darkness lest souls perish in the bitter winds.

"Then Jesus told them, 'You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light.'" John 12:35, 36 NIV

Things you won't see in heaven: Storm cellars