Rest of a New-Hard Season

Are you walking in a new-hard season as the New Year approaches? Is this Christmas song lyric your own context right now?

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, 
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; 
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, 
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

(“In the Bleak Midwinter,” Rossetti, C. G., c. 1872)

As winter approached, my husband pivoted from actively caring for living plants to preparing for next year’s garden. He destroyed and composted some of them to become spring’s new rich soil. He also potted and protected some plants in our house’s warmth.

He had to choose the wisest and most fruitful direction for each plant, preparing for winter’s freeze as he put the garden to rest.

In a transition to a harsh winter, a season in which some things lie resting…and some things even disappear…we’re also safe in the hands of our loving Father who always chooses His best for us as He prepares us for new-hard seasons. I wonder…

Might He be giving us a season of paradoxically good rest when new-hard arises?

Jesus in A New-Hard Season

Our God creates new, right? The Lord knitted us together! He created us as human babies and He then removed the veil from our eyes, making us a “new creation” with a transformed heart of a “born-again” life. Hallelujah!

By God’s gracious gift, we began to walk in a new life and we continue in His sanctifying work, as He transforms us into the likeness of Christ. His loving care in our new-hard season is uniquely part of this. How?

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed the Lord God incarnate, Jesus Christ.

Jesus not only incarnated as a human to save us from sin and death but He also tenderly and compassionately gives us rest in new-hard seasons of suffering. More than anyone else, He understands…because He lived through them too.

Rest in a New-Hard Season

So graciously Jesus teaches us, doesn’t He? I’m still learning that His yoke is always best. “Come to Me,” He beckons. He helps us let down the strained cords we’re using as we try to carry the load, the overburdened places, or places where sin has invaded. He provides inward tranquility. He leads us, yoked to His side, to His perfect way. The soul-rest He gives us is an intermission, a learning place, relaxing into His refreshing and cleansing grace when things are so hard.

What have you seen God do in your past new-hard seasons? What is He teaching you in His Word right now?

Put on the New Self

As snow blankets and ice pelts in dark days, we’re needier, right? So He draws us into warmth in order to simply survive in new-hard seasons. If you’re like me, we cling tighter to His Word, we pray and pray and pray, wrapping ourselves in His protective blankets as we return to the cross and rely on His comforting promises with hope. In our new dependence, we need our Savior’s yoked help. We burrow deeper into His love in new-hard seasons.

In those hard seasons of new dependence, God teaches us to take off the old and put on the new self in Christ, the one that He’s actively renewing and creating.

Put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Col. 3:10 ESV).

How could your new-hard season be His gift of soul-rest to actively help you “put on” the new self in Christ, yoked to Him?

My New Season

For me, my old season of work was suddenly cut short by the pandemic in 2020. It felt constantly new-hard. But four months prior, He’d been drawing me into something new, pouring out new treasures of His Word in Bible study and prayer. In continually hard changes that made no sense pre-pandemic, the Lord spoke vividly and clearly through His Word and providential events.

By God’s continual grace and guidance, all I knew was that I needed to obey Him. It was time for resting of a new-hard season in my life, closely yoked to Jesus. I’ll share more next week, but the last six months have since brought intense new-hard suffering and yet, His soul-rest has been astounding!

Because of His work in new-hard changes, this midwinter season doesn’t look bleak at all, because our sovereign and loving Lord began doing a new thing…preparing me before new-hard suffering began!

Announcement!

Because of all that our Lord has done in my new-hard season, “Singing Christ’s Hope” is now a nonprofit ministry. Its purpose is to glorify God by nurturing gospel-centered hope in Christ through song and Scripture, journeying heart-to-heart with suffering women. Becoming a nonprofit foundation means it can offer expanded free (or nearly free) resources for Christian women who are suffering. What can you expect in the future?

• Bible studies and books
• Programs and workshops of Scriptural encouragement
• Therapeutic musical learning: Practical and healing ways to use the musical voice God gave you!
• Christ-exalting personal worship music resources
• Prayer in global community with Christian women walking through suffering: A vital network of sisters in Christ linking voices

By His grace and for His glory alone, “Singing Christ’s Hope” aims to help us obey His call, as we suffer:

A Playlist to Sing-Pray for the New-Hard Year to Come

So, how could your new-hard season be God’s gift of soul-rest? Is He beckoning you to His gracious gift of a change as you walk yoked to Jesus Christ this new year?

This week’s playlist gift is filled with sung prayers, to seek God’s rest, His guidance, and wisdom as we praise and trust Him in our new-hard season right now. Sometimes when suffering is strong, it’s hard to find words to pray.

So these songs are intended to provide those words, some of them using Scripture itself. If this would bless you, sign up here and it will come to your email! I pray that the songs will foster His soul-rest for you too, beloved in Christ.

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