October has essentially come and gone. November is at the door. With it comes Novembery things. Into the trash, the weeks-old jack-o-lanterns will go. In exchange, some Thanksgiving décor will adorn front porches, bookshelves, and kitchen windowsills. Some among us won’t be able to resist putting out a few Christmas-leaning decorations, not necessarily a fully decorated tree. Maybe just a miniature Dickens-style village here and a snowman character there. Perhaps a wreath on the front door.

Henry David Thoreau called November the calendar’s mite, reminiscent of the gift given by the widow in Mark 12:41-44. He implied it doesn’t give much, but what it does offer—the last yellowing lights of autumn—are “more warming and exhilarating than any wine,” ultimately making it “equal in value to the bounty of July.” I’m not so sure I agree, being the summer man I am. July offers a steady repertoire of pleasantries that few other months can match. Although I suppose following Thoreau’s poetic lead, if I did have to compare November with July, one thought does come to mind. I’d say July gives us one particular day with a splash of color: Independence Day. The annual fireworks celebrations typically conclude with a minutes-long sky-filling grand finale. Autumn renders a far lengthier and much more extravagant array of colors, and November is its grand finale. Until the first snow pulls what’s left of autumn to the ground, November will spend its days bursting with fantastical hues.

The only other real praise I’m willing to give to November is for my wife’s birthday. I’m thankful in that regard.

Still, apart from playing a role in my wife’s entrance into this world, I prefer to look past November. Better yet, I prefer to look past winter altogether. Although, it’s been said that if you’re always looking to the future, you’ll ruin the present. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, the autumn and winter months weigh heavily on me. They have me wishing for sun-beaming warmth pouring down from cloudless skies, days when I need to be more concerned about sunburn than bone-stinging windchill.

As you may already know, I was pretty sick for almost two weeks. I didn’t start feeling like myself again until this past Friday night. I went to bed at 10:30 p.m. and woke up twelve hours later. It was obvious I needed the sleep. I share this because I spent almost every day during this recent illness looking to the future, continually reminding myself, “This is only a season. Another season is coming, a better season. Tomorrow will be better.” This was not an exercise in the power of positive thinking. I would speak this way only after praying to my Lord for the hope He alone can provide. In other words, my regular exercise was one of anticipating something better.

I know I can only reach spring and eventually enter summer once I have first traveled the blustering valley of winter. Similarly, I know I must pass through the harder seasons of mortality before entering something better. But no matter the circumstance, whether the melancholy of actual winter or the failing flesh in sickness, I’ll have no strength to endure anything this world wields against me without the hope Christ provides. And each challenge will be nothing less than a microcosmic image of God’s promised grace in struggle and deliverance for eternal life. This is the ongoing exercise of Christian hope, a challenging but powerful regimen. It not only teaches us to trust that God has us well in hand right now, but it has eyes for a far better tomorrow, one where hope is no longer necessary because it has been completely fulfilled in the glories of eternal life.

Considering Titus 2:13, Luther described it this way:

“But how long shall we wait for that blessed hope? Will it remain but a hope forever, and will it never be fulfilled? No, [Saint Paul] says, our blessed hope will not always remain a hope, but it will eventually be made manifest, so that we shall no longer only hope and wait for it, but what we now believe and hope for will then be made manifest in us, and we shall possess with full certainty what we now await. But meanwhile, we must wait for that blessed hope until it be revealed.” (Sermons from the Year 1531, W.A. 34. II. 117.)

The waiting is the hard part. It’s life’s winter. It’s the season of bodily illness, job loss, dysfunctional families, persecution, and so much more. Still, we know by faith we bear an otherworldly strength that can “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).

I pray you are well and enduring whatever the world insists on throwing at you right now. Winter is coming. But it’s only a season. Another season is coming, a better season.