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By the time you read this, it’s supposed to be a high of minus 3 degrees. Right now the temperature outside is hovering around freezing. Denver is warmer than us right now. One of those frigid cold fronts has escaped from Canada and invaded the middle of the country. Inside, it seems like the heater never stops. If you’re outside it hurts to breathe. The outside of your clothes feel brittle to the touch. Any exposed skin tingles before it goes numb. It feels like the outside air is pushing down on you as you walk. Every vapor that comes out of a house or car looks white and thick. Even if I don’t have a cold, my nose running mechanism gets turned on and left on. When it’s this cold the birds seem to disappear. Even the fattest squirrels move really fast. No living breathing animal walks slowly in this kind of weather if you can help it. Living in this cold of weather is an endurance test. Your soul’s constant question to your mind and body is, “Can you make it until it warms up again?” So we watch the weather reports. We read the five-day forecast in the paper and online. We wonder what it’s like to live in Arizona, Florida, or California right now. Around the coffee table, we debate whether it’s worth the effort to live out the winter on the high plains. When it’s this cold, my South Carolina-raised wife comes in from outside and declares, “It’s not supposed to be like this! People aren’t supposed to live in places where it gets this cold!” I say, “Tell that to the Canadians.” Even after all these years in Nebraska, Cindy still has a hard time remembering to zip up her coat, (the first few years she’d carry her coat from the house to the car). Those of us who’ve grown up with an annual expectation of sub-zero weather in January go to our bottom drawers and pull out the long johns and wool socks. We go to the closet and dig out our insulated boots, scarves, extra warm gloves, and our biggest, heaviest coat with a hood. We button and zip and yank it all on and take a deep breath before going out the door. We lean into the wind and close our eyes to little slits to keep them from freezing shut between the house and the car. When it is this cold, may God help us remember that there is an end to this. And, please God, help me remember what my body felt like that day back in July when I complained about it being too hot. Grace & Peace,