Practicing Joy in a Midwest Winter

One winter afternoon, as the second snowstorm of the season approached, I decided to start a bonfire. I dug a few inches of snow out of the old brick fireplace in our backyard, stacked sticks in a tent-shaped pile, tucked in wads of newspaper, and lit a match. It was about 20 degrees outside, and the snow had just begun to fall—soft at first, then steady. By the time the fire was in full swing, snowflakes were barreling sideways across the yard, stinging the back of my neck while the flames warmed my hands. I sat there for almost an hour, probably looking ridiculous to anyone who might have glanced out a window.

After the storm cleared two days later, I layered on running clothes, strapped spikes to my tennis shoes, and clipped lights to my forearms so drivers could see me in the early morning darkness. I hopped between snowdrifts and past snowplows, running over uneven patches of shoveled sidewalk. Once again, I’m sure I looked absurd. And, once again, I was—almost against logic—joyful.

For years, winter in the Upper Midwest felt like something I simply had to endure: the biting wind, the below-freezing temperatures. I complained. I stayed inside. I waited for spring to show up.

But as I heard more about the Scandinavian practice of seeking joy in winter—not waiting for the season to pass but choosing to meet it—I had a sense that I was missing something. After all, if Christ claims every part of creation, then doesn’t that include the windy prairie and the long Midwest winter? I wasn’t exactly embodying a Reformed Christian perspective when I treated the winter months as drudgery.

Things changed when I took up cold weather running and learned how to build fires. Practicing those small, stubborn skills is teaching me how to love the ordinary world God has given me. Joy in winter isn’t found by escaping the inconvenience of it; it’s learning to be resourceful and patient in the wintry mix.

When Christians talk about “creation,” we tend to pick out the prettiest parts—places we travel to like mountains and oceans, not where we live our everyday lives. But Genesis 1:31 says, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” That’s right: all. And if I take theologian Abraham Kuyper seriously when he said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ…does not cry, ‘Mine!’” then that goodness includes the sharp prairie winds of Northwest Iowa—not just sunny California or mountainous Colorado.

I realized that if God declared this place good, then perhaps it’s my vision of the landscape that needs reforming.

Last winter, I tried running in below-freezing weather for the first time. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into or even if it was a good idea. But once I learned how to layer well—balaclava, base layers, windproof shell, wool socks, and a warm hat—I realized I could do more and run further than I anticipated. Running in the cold trained me to pay attention: to the daily differences in temperature and wind speed, to the way the air burns and then settles in your lungs, to the quiet crunch of snow underfoot.

None of it is convenient. But facing the cold head-on taught me small lessons in perseverance, courage, and joy. Inconvenience has a way of forming us if we let it; it can stretch our patience and strengthen our sense of God’s presence in unexpected places.

Something else shifted in me last year. When my final living grandparent passed away in August—a man who loved the outdoors and paid attention to the rhythms of the seasons—I started thinking about what it meant to carry that sense of stewardship forward. It struck me that, after living close to the outdoors for most of my life, I didn’t actually know how to build a fire. Maybe that was partly because, at age three, I fell into one and carried a quiet aversion to flames for decades. But this year felt like the right time to learn.

So I became that person who picks up fallen branches in the neighborhood park after a storm. I collected scrap newspaper for fire starter and asked my husband to make trips to the dump for logs. Then I cleaned out our neglected backyard fireplace and started practicing. I built fires after rainstorms, on crisp fall afternoons, and between gusts of wind. I wasn’t always successful, but with each attempt, I learned something new.

Eventually, in December, I sat in a snowstorm, letting the fire warm my hands while the nipping cold pressed against my back—a small, strange lesson in how beauty and hardship can sit side by side.

There is something to be learned from inconvenient things. There is something to be gained from winter in the Midwest. It may not look pleasant to sit outside by a fire while snow falls or to pull on layers and go running when it might seem more logical (and more enjoyable) to stay indoors. But joy grows when we practice looking for it. And a Midwest winter—this often-overlooked square inch of God’s world—offers blessings for those willing to go out and meet them.