Haley I’m a lover of two seasons: spring and fall.

I’m okay with summer, but the older I get, the more I find winter to be an uncomfortable challenge. If I were given the opportunity to vote for a climate change, I would cast my ballot to make winter two weeks long, with one good size snow. We could let all the kids out of school, close down the government, and give winter a new name. We could call it simply “snow.” We could send people “Happy Snow” greetings, have snowman contests, build snow forts, make snow ice cream, and in two weeks, the sun would come out and we would move right into that lovely, always welcome experience called “spring.”

In many parts of the world, January has never been much appreciated, being the coldest of the winter months. In the days of the early Roman Empire, January and February didn’t even have names. They were simply called “winter.”

With that said, I must admit that January, with all its nasty roads, high heat bills, car repairs, and series of weather-related cancellations, is a time of reflection and thanksgiving for me. There is a special spot in my heart for January because it has perhaps taught me more about love and compassion than any of the other months.

It was in January, in a year when things were harder for us than they are now. We weren’t making it financially and we were having an exceptionally cold winter. I remember the cold chill while standing at the local post office, opening one of the highest gas bills I had ever seen. But I also remember the warmth of friendship a few weeks later when a church found out about our need and blessed us by paying that gas bill.

It was in January when I found myself at the side of a lonely highway with a flat tire … in the rain … suffering from the flu … with my young children in the back seat. This was before cell phones, but it wasn’t before kind strangers. Immediately after whimpering a prayer of “Help me Jesus,” a man with his family in a mini-van pulled up behind me, and finding I was sick, helped my children into his warm car and proceeded to change my tire. I felt very humbled but very blessed as I sat behind the wheel watching this young man take upon himself my mud, my grease, my pain, and my cold rain.

It was also in January just a few years ago, after we’d had several inches of snow, that a neighbor took upon himself the task of using his new snow blower to clean off all the parking spaces in front of our house and our walks and then, after we jokingly mentioned that he forgot the sidewalk to the outhouse (that we seldom use), he joyfully did that one too, totally ignoring our protests. What a blessing!

January has taught me how to better love and how to better serve. Other months of the year certainly present their own opportunities, but January teaches compassion with sacrifice better than any other month.

Thank you Lord for January, and thank you Lord for all those January people that seem to find great joy in helping in the most difficult times. I want to be one of them.

“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” Colossians 3:12-14

Eric J. Haley is pastor of Calvary Chapel Carroll County.