The Promise of Winter
By: Rachel Eller
“Like the frost on a rose
Winter comes for us all
Oh how nature acquaints us
With the nature of patience.”
I love the song “Seasons” by Hillsong. There was a time when its truth carried me through what felt like a long winter of life.
Perhaps “winter comes for us all” sounds ominous, depressing, or unhelpful to you. But Jesus tells us something about the necessity of winter:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
If you ever find yourself in a winter of slowness or uncertainty in your life, it is a stagnant season. In my own life at least, I’ve noticed that periods of inactivity and questions are the times of the most internal growth and preparation for future change.
In the winter of 2022-2023 and extending into the rest of that year, I faced a slew of unknowns, both personally and professionally. My boyfriend and I were estranged from his parents because we attended a mainline Trinitarian church and not their oneness Pentecostal one. I was in a fellowship that would end at some time, but it was not clear to me when it would end, and I wasn’t even sure if it was the kind of career I wanted. These produced secondary unknowns. How long should I live in Hillsdale? How long should I live with the family I’m currently living with? Am I responding to all of this in the right way? What can I do?
That literal winter was dreadful and perfectly applicable to my feeling frozen in indecision. I would lie in bed at night staring up at the darkness around me and feel engulfed by the emptiness. I would beg God for direction and only feel a quiet tug to just wait.
Keep waiting.
Spring and summer 2023 came and the passing time signaled by the weather—plus the graduations, new jobs, engagements, and weddings of others around me—seemed to rub in my face the lack of change in my own life.
But...slowly.
There was change occurring underneath.
By autumn 2023, there had been many ups and downs and still little-to-no forward motion regarding my big questions. But suddenly, the unknowns weren’t scary. It felt like what the Apostle Paul describes in Philippians—a peace that “surpasses all understanding.” I became focused on embracing the beauty of the present season, like the cooler air and fall flavors, as well as many joys of my particular life: living with a family of four and helping their girls, a loving and loyal boyfriend seeking to do right amidst hardship, and several dear friends and a sister living close by.
Countless times that year, I had thought “this is the worst year of my life.” In September of that year, I wrote in my journal “this has been the hardest year of my life and yet...maybe my favorite?”
I wrote then, “the Rachel I want to become had to go through this year. The Rachel I want to become is still pending. I’m still very much in the middle. But maybe that’s life—holding on in the not yet. Yearning for Heaven and God making all things new.”
Indeed, it was very much just the middle of lots of change. Fall 2023 quickly became a winter, spring, summer, and then fall 2024. My now husband and I experienced new work opportunities, spiritual and relational clarity, changed living situations, total career shifts, and the joy of engagement.
To quote one of my all-time favorite lines from American literature by author Zora Neale Hurston: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
You might think “that’s nice for you, but what if my seasonal change went from joy to pain?” Or “what if I lost someone or something permanently, so this season is forever?” Believe me, I do get it. My in-laws have indefinitely estranged us. There’s not much we haven’t already tried to reconcile—to no avail. We pray and we hope, but we also accept that sometimes the “end” of a season is the beginning of the rest of your life walking with grief.
But as God shows us through the natural world, we can still harvest beautiful new fruit in the soil shaped by the previous winter. Like Paul, I only mean to boast to you of my suffering so that I can boast all the more in God’s faithfulness. We can cling to the promise that all of life on this earth is a temporary season. We will see new life and comfort from our pain.
And on this side of heaven, Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4 that the work of living with change is exactly what defines and sanctifies us:
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
Rachel Eller ‘22
A southern gal from Tennessee at heart, but I’ve lived in Hillsdale since I started college in 2018 and met my husband here! We got married in May 2025 and love living in a real life “Stars Hollow.” For work, I am a NASM-Certified Personal Trainer and instructor of several fitness classes at the college, but most days it doesn’t feel like work! I love my job of working alongside people on their fitness journeys and my husband and I are avid “gym rats” ourselves. We also love cooking in our little home, long walks outside with a Rough Draft coffee in hand, and spending time with the many great people in our church and college community.
