Imagining Spring

 

It’s supposed to be here, but I haven’t seen it.

Fresh.
Warm.
Color.
Newness.

 

In its place are desaturated greys, bare, melancholy, cold… still stagnant.

Spring… are you there?

 

 

I’ve felt a bit sunk into the same state as the seasons lately, looking for the spring sunshine and promise of new beginnings, but still surrounded by the canopy of clouds and same unwelcome chill I had hoped would have bid farewell months ago.

The calendar says “spring,” and my heart yearns for it in every form, but it’s not here… yet.

 

 

So what to do while we’re placed under the grey masses as they block the sunshine, while flurries still shower down despite our prayers for sun rays and new sprigs of life to make their debut?

We hope.

We wait.

 

 

I remember the springs and summers that have come before, knowing we’ve all been in the sunlight and then in the shadows as the years have progressed.

The long winters can make it hard to remember the warmth and the brightness. I have to purposefully reflect to bring back to mind the feeling of the sun, shining full and strong on my face.

I have tasted its goodness before, and I will again.

 

 

I can’t force the feeling of spring to come. I can’t raise the temperature or coax the sunshine to come play or cause new life to replace the bare branches.

Only One can do that.

 

But I know spring is coming. After every bleak winter season, even those that hit harder and colder and longer than we thought we’d be able to handle… there will be spring.

 

 

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Romans 8:20-25

 

 

I hope for spring. And not the wishful, “Maybe-there’s-a-chance?” kind of hope, but rather, a confident expectation of things to come.

I don’t see it now… but it is coming.

And when it does, it will be more beautiful than I had imagined.