The Hope of Spring

"Now when you see these things begin to happen,
look up and lift up your hearts,
because your redemption draws near."
Luke 21:28

In an Ancient Paths seminar, during the "getting to know your small group" session, one of the questions I often ask the group is; "What is the name of the season you are in?"

This question always helps to melt the ice, causes people to look inside as they think of the particular season they are in.

As each shares his or her particular season, there is a bond, a connection that is formed. Somehow, we can all relate to one another as we share the seasons that we go through.

The seasons of our lives are not just limited to four seasons. There are seasons of breakthrough, of healing, of searching. There are night seasons. Songless seasons. A season for joy, for questioning and searching for answers.

Ecclesiastes lists 14 seasons. But the list is endless.

I just love looking at the changing of the seasons, what I call the in between seasons of my life.

God spoke to me just as the past year was ending. For me, the name of my season is clear. Spring is in the air.

Still grieving my deep loss - the loss of my hear husband. Life just isn't the same without him. There are times when I can't keep the tears from falling.

And yet, in the midst of this pain, there is a joy, and a sense of hope, that I just can't put into words.

God did help me understand ... I'm in between seasons. But spring is coming.

The song of hope is rising in my heart. For now, this verse is God's word for me:

See! The winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth,
the season of singing has come.

Song of songs 2:11-12


John Eldredge is one of my favorite authors. He talks of things that are real to me.

In his book Journey of Desire, John writes a little bit about his grief over the death of his best friend Brent. I want to share a portion of what he writes in his book:

I was walking in the woods and fields behind our house one evening, four months after Brent's death. My heart was so aware of the loss--not only of Brent, but in some ways, of everything that mattered. I knew that one by one, I would lose everyone I cared about and the life I am still seeking. In the east, a full moon was rising, bright and beautiful and enormous as it seems when it is just above the horizon. Toward the west, the clouds were turning peach and pink against a topaz sky. Telling myself to long for eternity feels like telling myself to let go of all I love--forever. It feels like accepting the teaching of Eastern religions, a denial of life and all God created. We lose it all too soon, before we can begin to live and love. But what it? What if nature is speaking to us? What if sunrise and sunset tell the tale everyday, remembering Eden's glory, prophesying Eden's return? What if it shall all be restored?

THE SECRET OF SPRING

Winter tarries long at six thousand feet. Here in the Rocky Mountains, spring comes late and fitfully. We had snow again last week -- the second week in May. Our boys are about to get out of school for summer vacation, and it's snowing. I've come to accept that spring here is really a wrestling match between winter and summer, as if winter doesn't want to let go its grip until it absolutely has to. It makes for a long time of waiting. You see, the flowers are pretty much gone in September. The first of October, the aspens start turning gold and drop their leaves in a week or two. Come November all is gray. Initially, I don't mind. The coming of winter has its joys and there are Thanksgiving and Christmastime to look forward to.

But after the new year, things begin to drag on. Through February and then March, the earth remains lifeless. The whole world lies shadowed in brown and gray tones, like an old photograph. Winter's novelty is long past, and by April we are longing for some sign of life -- some color, some hope. Instead, we get dumped on. It's our biggest snow month. While the azaleas are coming out in full glory in Atlanta, and the dogwoods are blooming pink and white in Portland, we are shoveling several feet of snow. It's too long.

And then, just this afternoon, I rounded the corner into our neighborhood, and suddenly, the world was green again. The bluffs behind our house were transformed. What had been rock and twig and and dead mulch was a rich oriental carpet of green. I was shocked, stunned. How did it happen? As if in disbelief, I got out of my car and began to walk through the woods, touching every leaf. Just yesterday the scrub oaks had the twisted, gnarled look of the hands of an old witch. Now they are beautiful, tender, supple like a maiden. The birds are back as well, waking us in the morning with their glad songs. All the chirps and cheeps and whistles and twitters, a raucous melody of simple joy. It happened suddenly. In the twinkling of an eye.

My surprise is telling. It seems natural to long for spring, it is another thing to be completely stunned by its return. I am truly and genuinely surprised, as if my reaction were. Really? What are you doing here? And then I realized, I never thought I'd see you again. I think in some deep place inside, I had accepted the fact that winter is what is really true. As I lived through the first year of my grief, I had unconsciously settled into resignation. Empty and still, the world outside seemed a confirmation, the only fitting backdrop to the world within. I am shocked by the return of spring. And I wonder, Can the same thing happen for my soul?

Grief melts away
Like snow in May
As it there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shrivl'd heart
Could have recover'd greennesse? It was gone
Quite underground

And now in age I bug again,
After so many deaths I live and write,
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my only light
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom thy tempests fell at night.

"The Flower" by George Herbert

From Journey of Desire, by John Eldredge

This is such a beautiful, relevant insight, that is why I wanted to include it in today's post.

John Eldredge writes this book for those who are searching for the truth, and he wants the reader to hope, and to believe, that there is such a thing as heaven, and eternal life.

I am not devastated by my grief and sense of loss, as he was. I have no doubt about the coming day of spending eternity in heaven.

But I love what he writes about being surprised by the unannounced arrival of spring. Yes, God loves to surprise us with his surprise visits.

Just like C.S. Lewis, who writes about it in Surprised by Joy, God has time and again surprised me with His joy.

Spring speaks of joy, hope, and gladness. Somehow I believe that God created the three other seasons to highlight the beauty of spring.

On March 20, it will be the vernal or spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. That day marks the official start of spring for this year.

I do not live in the northern hemisphere, and we do not really have an official spring season here.

But I do want to share with my dear blog readers some photos of my garden which I took early yesterday morning.

Nature cries out to me with God's message of hope. Spring has arrived in my garden!

Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear

that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments,
not the composer.

-Geoffrey B. Charlesworth