Just when you think summer has come, winter giggles and sticks her icy nose into my life.

Not being much of a fan of winter I can stand it for so long, but not as long as it’s been this year. Either I’m getting old and cannot remember or this has been a very long winter. Shivering is not my favorite activity, although it’s the only activity I get to do lately.

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I were talking; rather she was talking and I was listening. That is what makes us a great pair. She talks, I listen and our world goes rolling on.

What she was talking about was summer. “When,” she asked, “will summer really get here?”

Of course, we can look at the calendar and pick out a date when summer is going to get here, but it is like playing the lottery, which I believe is rigged. I think picking the date of summer is rigged as well. I like to know who has rigged it because I would like to give them a piece of my wife’s mind.

We talked a little bit about summer coming, when it is going to come and what we are going to do when summer actually gets here. She had a long list of activities she was anxious to jump into. Unfortunately for me, most of those activities were visiting thrift stores.

I often wonder why they are called “thrift” stores. When my wife goes, thriftiness goes out the window. She can bargain Scrooge out of his last dollar.

I know this and she was talking about the upcoming summer that her eyes were twinkling which meant only one thing. “Thrift stores, here I come.”

Unfortunately, we did not solve the problem concerning the weather. If you think about it, the weatherman who is paid to predict the weather cannot predict the weather accurately. Oh, for a job like that.

Soon the wife had to get up and do something in her craft room. I do not know what is in that craft room. I do not go in for fear of my life. She is very crafty and I am not going to second-guess anything in that room.

When she left I got to thinking about the upcoming summer. What in the world can we do to hurry summer along?

If it were up to me, winter would only be one month long and the rest of the time it would be summer. That is how I would parse things out. As you know, Mrs. Winter has a domineering spirit and wants to be here all the time, even when she is not welcome.

As I was thinking about this, I thought there must be some way we can trick Mr. Summer into coming earlier. After all, everybody can be tricked into something, whether they like it or not. I know I’ve been tricked into many things and it’s hard to untrick yourself when you get tricked by someone like my wife.

Surely there something we can do to scam summer into coming a little earlier. I am sure Mr. Summer has its weaknesses like the rest of us. Our problem is to try to find that weakness. Once you find the weakness, then you are in control.

I thought of a few things but nothing seemed to stick in my mind. I am not used to thinking on my own and I was a little fearful of pulling in the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage to this “Think Tank” on an early summer.

Then a thought hit me. When I got up off the ground, for I am not accustomed for a thought to hit me, I sat back in my chair and smiled very broadly. I think I know what we can do. I believe I know how to trick good old Mr. Summer.

Everybody is really invested in themselves to some degree. The same can be said for Mr. Summer. Why not convince him that he is not needed anymore in our life?

Get up in the morning when it’s very cold, put on a coat, go outside and dance and sing and just enjoy the coldness of the weather. Maybe one song we could sing is, “I Don’t Need Summer Anymore.” Just pretend that we love the cold and the colder it is, the more we love it.

I don’t think it would take long for Mr. Summer to get jealous of Mrs. Winter and want to come back as soon as he can. Nobody likes to be out flagged on anything particularly in this category.

I was sitting in my chair with a smile all over my face and my wife came in and said, “Why are you smiling?”

“I was just thinking,” I said, “how nice it is on such a cold winter day to spend the time indoors with you.”

She smiled and went back to her craft room. I guess it really does work.

I thought of one of my favorite Bible verses. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Even though I am very impatient about many things, like Mr. Summer, I am so thankful that God is patient toward me in all things.