See the fat pony
See the snow on the fat pony
See the power of insulation, both fur and fat, on that fat pony!
Okay, that is an awful poem and that is a Norwegian Fjord, which is not a pony but a miniature draft HORSE. However, details aside, the snow that fell on her doesn't melt because her coat keeps her heat next to her skin and insulates her from the cold.
Staying warm is all about insulation, for example consider homes, hogs, and hunters. Our house is insulated with spray foam, which keeps out wind and drafts while creating a thick layer of tiny air pockets that keep the heat in and the cold out. Our American Guinea hogs are lard pigs and some descriptions of them discuss their lard layer as blubber, like as in whales and seals! They can handle the coldest temperatures because they are insulated with fat, a LOT of fat. This fall and winter I have been working at a deer processing facility. It's a small family operation and most of the guys I work with hunt or used to hunt. Cold weather hunting means proper layers, wind protection, and foot wear i.e. insulation.
In this world, trouble seems to come at us like a stiff breeze and disappointment and despair can creep over us in a spiritual hypothermia. We must be well insulated with truth. Truth helps us by turning the fiercest winds of difficulty and the truth of how God loves us wraps us in a layer of warmth that each one of us desperatly needs.
Have you ever met or observed someone, who like that fat pony above, seems to weather trial and trouble and just shakes it off. In my life, one of the key distinctives about those folks is that they are humble and yet confident. Confident in Christ, secure in the knowledge that God is for them not against them, and honest about their own frailties and failings.
Knowledge like this does not come easily and insulation doesn't prevent the bad weather, rather it is the power to go and be in this world and yet not succumb to the bitterness of life.