This fog did not come creeping in on little cat feet and pause by the harbor a while before moving on. No, sir, this one came waddling in like a morbidly obese English Bulldog, plopped down heavily and refused to move.

For days now, it has squatted over the hills and valleys of northeastern Kansas, insolently oblivious to the sodden squalor of its presence, the sullen soaking of every exposed surface, branch, twig, leaf, stem, cell, molecule.

In the mixing of the slumping snow and the still frozen just-below-the-surface, there is a slickening muck that seems to suck the slightest weight into the sinking crust. In both texture and appearance, there is an unpleasant sense of repulsive exposure. Fingers of only slightly thawed dead grass and fallen leaves stretch into the slumping drifts of heaving snow.

And yet… in the hazed images of tree trunks melding into the mist, in the silhouetted shapes against the softened glow of yard lights and the slightly muted night warmth of farmhouse windows, there is something of beauty. In the mist-quietened murmur of traffic and the silence of night’s stillness, there is a pleasant peace.

Even in the disgusting mix of mud and muck and ice and melting snow in the paddock, there is blessing below the surface, a slow saturation of moisture into the drought leached soil, a soothing that will bring forth seed and nourish the greening of spring in due time.

In the seasons of aggravation and affliction, there is yet grace that strengthens the spirit and soothes the soul. Even in our testings, there is nourishment for the coming season. Even our slogging bootprints speak of benefit and supply that reaches beyond this momentary enduring. Not even the dismal gray of a weeklong fog can hide the presence of God from the eye of faith and a deliberate seeking of good.