A Warmed Heart {Weekending}

It's been so long since I've made a weekending post, and this week I've been feeling the itch to get back to my (neglected) blog space.

March has always been a dreary, long month around these parts. Yes, March holds the first days of spring, but it certainly doesn't feel like it, and the constant cold feels so defeating. 
And during this time of the year, I always feel so completely uninspired, and down. It's pathetic that something as simple as the weather can make a person feel like this, but alas, there it is.
I'm a warm blooded person, and I'm thoroughly convinced that I was not designed for the cold.

I'm simply stunned sometimes at the thought of pioneers settling in a land such as this. (Or anywhere that it snows, for that matter.) What on earth would possess someone to do such a thing?
 I do know that I'm probably in the warmest area of Canada...but you have to realize that I'm also the world's biggest wiener when it comes to winter. I like snow on Christmas day, and through new years, but then after that, I'd really be just okay with that white "magic" melting away into spring. 

 I had a great, great, great grandmother, who was a pioneer in Kansas. 
They settled in an area that was extremely underpopulated, and what little population was there, was an all black community. And understandably, at those times, white settlers did not exactly receive the warmest welcome in that area.

Now, Kansas prairie winters are pretty dismal as well, although quite a bit shorter.
I would imagine though, with babies and small children to take care of in a drafty cabin, by herself, with no family in sight other than a husband who spent his days working the land, and complete lack of communication with the rest of the world, her winters must have seemed pretty long. Very long.
She died at a very young age, and of what could be chalked up to being nothing other than the sting of loneliness. Somewhere along an old fence row near Nicodemus KS, is a tombstone that reads "Nancy Ellen Persley... died of 'Pining'" .

Every time this kind of grey, cold-to-the-bone bite of winter gets me down I think of her, and how much of a total wuss I must be compared to her. And how thankful I really should be.

 I mean, I have a warm house, family nearby, my children are fed and clothed much more easily, and aren't dying of things like common colds. I don't have to go chop ice each morning for drinking water, or light any fires to fight death on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, with the push of a button or the twist of a handle, I get heat, and instant hot water. How completely petty are my complaints against winter?

This weekend though, I did see the light at the end of the tunnel, with a warm sun, and even some April showers.
 Stepping out onto the porch and being overwhelmed with the smell of rain in the air before it even fell was so completely reassuring, and promising.

Windows open, fresh air in, warm sun on our skin, hints of new life and growth everywhere we look, and free time together for family gatherings and meals, to play, sing, and worship our creator on Resurrection Sunday.
We are blessed.