Changing Seasons

I need spring to come and winter to end.

Honestly, this has been a constant thought in my mind since mid-January following a series of unfortunate events: a trip to the ER, an ablation scheduled, missing a conference due to heart issues, waiting for the ablation, having to reschedule the ablation while sitting in pre-op talking with the cardiologist. 

It’s not been a great season. In fact, its been a difficult, trying season that has left me mentally exhausted. 

Perhaps you have found yourself in one of these seasons too?  A winter season that feels extra dark and sometimes hopeless. It’s not uncommon for us to experience these “seasons of life,” and Ecclesiastes reminds us “there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens (Eccl 3:1).”

Yet, in my season of darkness, frustration, and health issues, I started to consider what could I learn in this winter season.

It was this weekend that I became acknowledged the hopefulness that I have also been clinging too. I was working in my backyard planting some flower bulbs, and hosta and fern bulbs. I was getting them in the ground now for fear that I would not feel like it later this month due to the ablation.

Here I was planting hopefulness. To dig in the dirt and drop these bulbs in the ground was to say, “there WILL be a spring time, there WILL be a brighter future, there WILL be beauty later.”

I also started noticing other plants in our backyard. The hydrangea bushes are budding, and the fig trees are starting to gently put out their leaves. Last year, both the hydrangea bushes and the figs barely did anything due to the late winter frost we received, and yet, once again there is hope that they will bloom beautifully.

That’s where I am choosing to plant myself. Not in a hole of despair and darkness. I’ve climbed out of that. I’m choosing to say winter is ending; I am hopeful for a tomorrow.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.