Like a bear emerging from winters hibernation, I too emerged outside for the first time in months. Yesterday I sat on the back patio, with baby Kezia nuzzled on my chest I sat there letting the warmth of the sun hit my face.  With my eyes closed I listened to the melody of the birds chirping around me and the twins giggling without a care in the world, free of fear and worry. The bunnies were hopping around the neighborhood with the glee of Spring arriving. In the uncertainty swirling around,

SPRING still showed up.

Winter ended and the season of Spring arrived.
No darkness could steal the hope of Springs arrival.
God’s beauty was still found in the warm blue skies, songs of the birds and joy of bunnies hopping.
Just as the sun still rose in the west and set to the east, so Spring still arrives. Winter can’t last forever.

I wrote some of these words below last Spring, as I reread them today I thought they were for me today in the season we all find ourselves in.

Written Spring 2019

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I love Spring, the seasons changing and the coming out of dark winter has always stirred my heart.

Spring reminds me of HOPE.

Every season when those little seeds start budding on trees and the flowers pop from the once frozen dirt it reminds me of LIFE.

Life is still at work in the dark.

Growth and life still at work in those long hopeless winter days.

Even when my eyes can’t see what is at work beneath, life is taking place.

Underneath the cold soil of winter, life at work.

We can’t have the beauty of Spring without the suffering and pain of Winter.

In an instant the inches of snow melts, the sun comes out, the birds begin chirping and the landscape transforms before our eyes. It happens so quickly that it eases the pain of the long winter days.

We can’t appreciate Spring’s beauty, the aroma of life budding all around without stopping and appreciating the long suffering winter.

Death leads to life.

Spring stirs my soul in deeply spiritual ways…
Hope…. death before life.

We have a Savior who led the way; death– life–HOPE!

Our long suffering winter is the seed of abundant and fruitful LIFE.

Each bud popping open as it bends towards the warmth of sunlight didn’t arrive until it died, pushed through the darkness of dirt.

Each bloom popping open a reminder: suffering…death… LIFE.

Spring beckons our hope to burst forth with the reminder, life comes in cycles of seasons…

We don’t lose hope in the darkness of suffering because in that we are actually in the cycle of birthing LIFE. 

Dare to Hope.
Dare to Hope even in the
uncertainty
chaos
darkness

Winter before Spring
Death before Resurrection

Hope in the promises that are to come.