Whatever the Season

   How can you learn to be thankful in an often thank-less world? How can you see Grace for what it is when everything around you speaks of heartache? How can you sing in life's storms, remain open to Him, when the pain seems too much?

  I start my week asking these questions, and I realize that this is where life tests us the deepest: can we experience the abundant Grace in all this mess? Can we bring ourselves to love, to live no matter the season we are in: if it be Spring, with all things new and beginning; Summer - alive and full; Fall, when all comes apart and is dying; Winter - cold and dark, lifeless and deep. Wherever we find ourselves on the journey, can we still find the song in our souls, no matter how broken?

 I sit and gaze out at the silent, snowy outdoors. I know of many who are walking through the Winter of life, who are trying to seek hope when the hurt is pressing. As I think of them, I seek the hope, too.

  Don't we each yearn for the promise of renewal? Isn't there a deep longing for the pain to be redeemed? The One who is Grace asks us to believe that this darkness will turn to a brighter day, that Spring will come with the hope of new beginnings. But He also says to wait out the Winter. He says to sing in the storms, to be grateful, and to be open, even when it is the last thing you think you can do.

  Today, the clouds hang low, but there is sun in the forecast. We await its arrival yet still  say it is a good day - today - clouds and all. And today, I will sing in the sadness. I will hope in the promise of Grace.

                " Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

                   Put your hope in God..."

                                      - Psalm 42: 5