Spring is coming.....

It's been a while since I've blogged and I keep putting it off.  I started this entry three days ago and I never do that.  My sweet sista Katie told me tonight that she was having blog withdrawls and I had almost forgotten this entry that I had started and needed to finish.  It seems everytime I praise God or am writing of how I'm growing spiritually or what's happening in my family on a spiritual note, something always happens to me that tests if I mean what I'm writing.  Test or trial or not, I mean it.  I haven't arrived by any means, but I thank God that He is shaping me and making me into the woman He desires me to be.  That shaping can get pretty rough at times but He's never left my side.  He's the potter and we're the clay but honestly I feel like a dried out clump on many occasions but He always manages to work me into what He wants me to be.  The process is painful at times but when it's all said and done ,through hyndsite, I see it. 

I don't know about you all but this has been a terrible Winter and one of the longest yet for me and my family.  I tease my husband every year and tell him our song is Merle Haggard's "If We Make it Through December".  I joke, but all joking aside that song title seemed pretty real to me this Winter.  I feel like from around October through the end of January and first of February I have been battling and struggling just to get through everyday.  I have not only experienced a physical Winter, but a spiritual Winter as well.  I'm going to compare the two so you get an idea of what I'm talking about.  I did a little(very little...lots of emphasis here so if you are a seasonal officiant please do not freak out) research on Wikipedia for my Winter facts.  The highlighted parts are my 2 cents on that fact.

They are:

1. Meteorological winter is the season having the shortest days and the lowest average temperatures, which have the coldest weather. (for the days to be shorter how in the world did it seem to last so long??)
2. Nighttime predominates the winter season ( great...more lack of sunlight which just added to my depression and gloom and doom)
3. Astronomically, the winter solstice, being the day of the year which has fewest hours of daylight, ought to be the middle of the season, but seasonal lag means that the coldest period normally follows the solstice by a few weeks. (cold, need I say more?)
4. Migration is a common effect of winter upon animals, notably birds. (don't blame them.  Should we take that as a sign to head south ourselves??)
5. Hibernation is a state of reduced metabolic activity during the winter. Some animals "sleep" during winter and only come out when the warm weather returns; e.g., gophers, frogs, snakes, and bats. (yeah my metabolic activity has not only reduced but I think it died.....yeah i'm sure it died)
6. Some animals store food for the winter and live on it instead of hibernating completely. (stored food and lived off of it alright, see the previous fact's comment)
7. Some fur-coated mammals grow a heavier coat during the winter; this improves the heat-retention qualities of the fur. The coat is then shed following the winter season to allow better cooling. ( Yeah that's it I was working on my heat retention...)
8. Some annual plants never survive the winter. Other annual plants require winter cold to complete their life cycle, this is known as vernalization. (this I'll elaborate on below...not enough room here but very interesting point!!)
9. Humans are sensitive to cold, see hypothermia. Snow blindness, norovirus, seasonal depression, slipping on black ice and falling icicles are other health concerns associated with cold and snowy weather. (how exciting!!!!!)
10. Some use winter to suggest death, as in Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Some use it to suggest the absence of hope, as in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where it was always winter but never Christmas. Winter is one concerto in Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," and there are many examples of four paintings all showing the same scene in different seasons. (yes, death is a great synonym for Winter)

So you get the idea.  Winter isn't exactly full of great and wonderful times for at least me and my family.  There is something I want you to look at with me for a second.  Fact number 8.


8. Some annual plants never survive the winter. Other annual plants require winter cold to complete their life cycle....


To me I'm seeing a couple of different kinds of outcomes for our spiritual seasons.  Those that do not survive their Winters and those that require it to complete their life cycles.  This is pretty profound stuff.  Think of a fruit tree.  Could a fruit tree bear fruit if it only went through one season continually?  Isn't there purpose in Spring for a tree, and purpose in the Summer, and purpose in the Fall, and purpose in the Winter?  Let's look at an apple tree:

• An apple tree will start bearing fruit 8-10 years after it is planted. A dwarf tree starts bearing in 3-6 years.
• Some apple trees will grow over 40 feet high and live over 100 years.
• Most apples can be grown farther north than most other fruits, because they blossom late in spring, minimizing frost damage.
• It takes the energy from 50 leaves to produce one apple.
• Apple trees are one of the longest living fruit trees.
• Most apples are still picked by hand in the fall.

For me ,spiritually speaking, my Spring wouldn't  have been near as SWEEThad the Winter not been so dark and bleak.  If we lived in a constant state of Spring would we not get dull with it after a certain amount of time?  Would we notice the fresh green sprigs of grass and just how green they really were?  Would blossoms on a tree be as significant if we passed them everyday?  Would we grow tired of the same fragrance of a daffodil if we smelled them everyday?  Here are some of my favorite verses in all the Bible and it pertains to just what I am talking about:

Ecclesiastes 3



To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Here's to finding the purpose in ALL of our seasons AND learning lessons from each one.

(For now ,though, I'm just going to try and drink in this Spring that's approaching and bask in the newness of all the new life around me physically and spiritually!)