Winter Always Leads to Spring

Winter is my least favorite season.  There are lots of reasons for this.  It's dark early and light late.  The weather is cruddy and I end up staying inside a lot (unless I actully have money for a lift ticket to go skiing).  The trees are bare from leaves and not a lot is blooming. 

In a lot of ways I love spring so much because after winter with all its darkness, dampness, and dullness the sight of a bright cheery flower blooming, the feeling of warmer weather, and the promise of summer around the corner feels, well, just hopeful and encouraging.

I actually feel like around here spring is already making itself known.  I saw some bulbs poking up out of the ground the other day, robins are back from their winter hiatus and I heard another bird singing his spring song the other day.  Even the peacocks at work are strutting their stuff in hopes of winning over a peahen, even though we don't have them.

I actually find a lot of spiritual lessons in the way our world works; in the scientific laws and principals that bring order to chaos.  My science background just seems to naturally lend itself to analysing and understanding things around me and to making correlations between what I know and what I am learning.  My mind is just wired that way. 

The book of Ecclesiastes talks about there being a season for everything under heaven.  It is no secret that I have been in a "winter" season lately.  Actually my winter season has been relatively long: over two years.  Several times in the last two and a half years I thought it was over.....when I attended the OneThing conference last February, visiting IHOP last March, when Mark Anderson came and spoke in April and July, my trip to Hong Kong last June, or even when Bob Sorge spoke this fall.  The lift I got from these things felt like the end of my winter, and I found myself saying, "This is it!  My winter season is over!" But then it would become clear that no, actually, just like a nice day in the middle of winter that can feel like a pick-me-up, I'm actually still in the middle of winter.

Lately, however, there have been signs of spring in my life again. What is encouraging is that they have nothing to do with a visit from a dynamic speaker, or attending a conference....these are just signs appearing all on their own, naturally.  Just as winter has an end and spring begins to appear, I am daring to believe that spring might just be blooming in my heart once more.

I have started to dream again.  I don't just mean dream as in wonderfully strange tales appearing to me as I sleep, though those are great and the Lord always speaks to my heart through those.  The dreams I am referring to are those wonderful times when you get excited about the possibilities of what life might hold.  On the outside, nothing has changed, but in my heart I have begun to feel stirred for the possibility of something more once again.  The peace, hope and joy, which have lied dormant for this winter are starting to poke their heads up out of the ground again.  A song is on my heart, and I'm starting to stir after a long winter's nap.

I am mature enough in Christ to know that no winter ever lasts forever.  Though, some winters linger longer than others.  I also know that just like the seasons on our planet, winter will come again someday.  But, I am reveling in the signs of spring, and taking it one day at a time.  That's all I can do.

Blessings,
Erin