Thank Goodness for Thermostats

So after spending a few days in the blissful 70 degree North Carolina weather, I started to wonder if I had Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder (SAD). Seriously! I was insanely more upbeat underneath those beautiful rays! But after some self-reflection I realized two things: 1) even taking only a few psychology courses has pushed me towards a tendency for hypochondria (if I am convinced I’m not a hypochondriac, does that mean I’m not? Because wouldn’t I be sure I had that disease if I was a hypochondriac? I’m getting off track here aren’t I). 2) I think winter makes my heart heavy because it echoes the inevitable emptiness of life.

Now before you start to worry this is going to be an incredibly depressing post, let me explain. Life is full of beautiful, breath-taking moments, but it is also full of mind-numbingly mundane and empty ones as well. We’ve heard a thousand times that life has its seasons of summers and winters, and I know its cliché but I think anyone would agree it is true. There is no use pretending life is always perfect. My life has been full of moments of extreme heat and blistering cold, but I am fortunate. Because I also have another thing that makes life immensely more bearable: an internal heating and cooling system.

I can’t help but laugh at myself when I mope and whine all day about how it is below 30 degrees outside when I haven’t even taken one step out of my nicely heated house at 68 degrees. But really, I shouldn’t be complaining! For all I know, it could be 68 degrees outside and I would still be complaining simply because someone made me believe it was only 30 degrees. 

But this is a perfect representation of my life. I get so swept away in my emotions, my meager, human perception of my life. I look through the windows of my pessimistic eyes and see a 30 degree day and mope and wine. But inside I have that constancy, that internal regulation that does not change no matter the weather of my days: Jesus.

If I’m truly living the way I am supposed to be, the weather should not matter. My emotions are meaningless. They are unimpressively human. After all, I have a God within me who can bring joy in the midst of sorrow. That means I have the propensity for summer constantly burning within me. It’s just a matter of living by the images through the windows, or by the reality safe inside my home.

This doesn’t mean I can never be sad or bored or angry or sick with life, it just means I cannot deny the fact that I always have a choice. Life is full of emptiness and sorrow. The weather really might be below 30 outside (and unfortunately it is in Mid-March). But my life does not have to be about my circumstances or feelings in this moment. I have a God who is constant, my continual consuming fire. I can choose to live my life as a gift from Him, and oftentimes when I choose to see my life like this, my emotions will follow. So thank goodness for my thermostat, thank goodness that it never lies.