We all know that familiar feeling of Mid-January. We sit in vacant living rooms where Christmas trees once stood. Ornaments and holiday decor have been packed away into red and green plastic tubs stashed in attics, basements, and garages. The joyous parties and warm family gatherings of December have yielded to blank tabletops and half-empty refrigerators. Out of doors, houses once bedecked with twinkling lights turn dark one by one. Sporadically, they are replaced with a charming blanket of snow. More often, the only foil to winter’s dark nights are dull, grey days that compliment equally uninspiring foliage.
For most us dwellers of the Northern Hemisphere, this bleak routine is a ritual we reluctantly meet in the early days of the new year. At the best of times, I like to consider myself to be an optimist, ever hopeful for the possibility of better times and better seasons. But for even the most zealous of positive thinkers, January can be a pill as bitter as the cold, shadowy skies that surround us. It can be an emptiness that is difficult to fight.
But the emptiness of the first month is also the crux of understanding its centrality to our understanding of seasons of growth and of fruitful harvest, and times of rest. Just as the fields lying fallow outside, so does January facilitate a time of quiet renewal. As a Christian, January offers me the opportunity to be more mindful in prayer, more faithful in the study of Godly things, and more earnest in resting in Christ Jesus and listening for his call upon my life. As a writer, this month is a time to generate new ideas and to work fervently at becoming a more effective communicator. And as a husband and family member, now is the moment to renew my commitments to serve those around me faithfully and with love.
Everyone has their own vocational callings and personal commitments. But I cannot help but wonder that if we all focused on the prospect of rest and renewal this January, we would be better equipped to face the many challenges in each of our lives. While only the coming of spring may be the true antidote to the doldrums of winter, we would be unable to experience the growth and renewal of the vernal months without a season of dormancy and languid rest. So, too, can we expect to grow in faith and knowledge if we too embrace January as a time not of frigid emptiness, but a gateway to a new and fruitful beginning.