When Your Life Feels Like Winter: Finding God’s Hidden Work in the Quiet Seasons

The leaves crunched under my boots as I trudged toward the mailbox.

Another bill. More ads. Nothing fun. I pulled my jacket tighter and looked around. Everything just looked tired. The trees were bare. The flowers that once made me smile were now brittle and brown.

I sighed as I stepped inside, dropping the stack of mail onto the counter. “Well,” I whispered, half-laughing, “doesn’t that look like my life.”

Maybe you’ve felt that way too. A season where your prayers feel like they’re hanging in midair. A season where you’re doing all the right things but nothing seems to be moving. A season where everyone else’s life looks like spring, full of growth, announcements, and new beginnings, while yours feels more like winter: quiet, slow, and a little lonely.

When God Feels Silent and Still

Winter seasons have a way of making us wonder if God has forgotten us, or if nothing good is growing at all. But here’s what I’m learning: winter is not proof that God has stopped working. Winter is often the season where God is working the deepest.

Everything in nature rests before it grows. Roots stretch down before branches stretch up. Seeds break open in cold, hidden places before anything breaks through the soil. Winter looks still, but creation is busy strengthening, holding, and preparing. And the same is true in us.

Hidden Growth in the Waiting

The waiting seasons, the quiet seasons, the “I don’t see anything happening” seasons are often the exact places where God is forming who we are becoming. He is doing a new thing even when we don’t feel it yet. Even when the surface looks still, the ground looks barren, and your heart feels tender or tired or left behind.

Isaiah 43:19 says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” This verse reminds us that God’s work often starts in hidden places, under the surface, in the quiet corners of our hearts. His new thing does not always begin with blossoms. It begins with roots.

In context, Isaiah is speaking to Israel in a time of exile and uncertainty. Hope felt distant and deliverance felt slow, but God declared that He was already preparing restoration, making a way where none could be seen. His work began long before His people could recognize its fruit.

Take Heart in Your Winter

So if your life looks like winter right now, take heart. Your waiting is not wasted. Your stillness is not failure. Your dormant season is not a dead one. God is faithful in every season, including this one.

Just as creation rests before spring, your soul can rest knowing that God is present in the quiet, active in the unseen, and attentive to your becoming.

Even here, even now, He is working beneath the surface.

Meet the Author
Reanna Hoffman

Reanna is a writer, speaker, coach, and host of the Not Just Waiting Podcast, where she equips women to wait well and actively pursue Jesus in every season. A former teacher who followed God’s call into new adventures, Reanna is passionate about reminding others they are seen, valued, and deeply loved by God. Whether she’s writing, coaching, or baking something sweet, she believes the Lord is the best adventure guide—and she’s just getting started.

Connect with her on Instagram here.