Maybe it’s living in the Midwest with all its vagaries of weather. Perhaps it’s global warming and the resulting polar vortex. I don’t say this facetiously, Dear Reader, but God only knows what the weather will be like on Easter.
Several years ago the temperatures in our area climbed to the upper seventies during mid-March spring break, and stayed above “normal” well into October. A few years later, we hadn’t seen the last of snow until early May. Go figure, right? You’d think after spending over eighty percent of my life here I’d learn to be more flexible. Unfortunately, this raised in the South gal continues to think Easter means sunny and pleasantly warm.
I recently watched a tender, bittersweet movie, “A Monster Calls.” It begs the question, in the rough and raw places of life, “What if you can’t see spring?” In the months just past, many of us have felt like spring would never come. For some, “spring” might be returning to the workplace, or kids going back to school, or fellowship with loved ones.
Or maybe, waiting for spring (figuratively) has been an even greater life-changing period…like extended illness, or work overload, a child caught in a cycle of negative choices, or financial burdens. We could probably spend all day trying to list circumstances that cause us to lose hope of ever seeing spring, the light at the end of a very long tunnel, couldn’t we, Dear Reader?
There is a right time for everything, and everything on earth will happen at the right time.
Ecclesiastes 3: 1 ERV
What does spring look like to you, Dear Reader? Is it tulips bobbing their colorful heads as you walk out in the yard? Is it swapping a mug of hot tea for a long, cool glass of iced tea? Maybe flip-flops with toes brightly painted with polish the colors of Easter eggs? Is it wind chimes with lilting lullabies?
How do you keep those sensory pleasures close when you can’t see spring?
Many miles and years removed from my southern youth hasn’t dimmed how I still see spring. I see Mama starting to hang clothes on the line outdoors instead of racks in the kitchen as soon as the wind began shifting to the south. I remember Sunday dinners on concrete tables in the church yard. And I can still close my eyes and imagine the scratch and rustle of crinoline under a new Easter dress Mama made just for me.
I pray that the God who gives hope will fill you with much joy and peace as you trust in him. Then you will have more and more hope, and it will flow out of you by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 ERV
Dear Reader, I lift up the Apostle Paul’s prayer for you, whether spring is in full bloom where you are, or you’re wondering if you will ever see it again. I pray that you will be saturated with trust and drenched in the hope that can be found in Jesus.
