Hints of Spring

 I hear the soft drip, drip, drip of melting snow outside. The world is beginning to wake up. Winter is passing. I can feel it. The sunshine penetrates more deeply, more long as the cold of hard-frost months fades away. The birds, the woodland creatures scurry to prepare nests for their coming young. The trees bustle with activity. I stop to watch a single water-droplet as it shimmers in the sun-rays. The angle of the light causes it's clear to run blue. And I marvel. That something so tiny could carry beauty still. That I could be given eyes to see it for what it is: His creating. A moment that brings with it a hint of spring. 

 The growing warmth of these days is melting a hard soul. This has been a tough winter. So much pain, so much ending. Days of asking God to simply help me through - today. I've pleaded at times for the hints of spring. I just want life! Something coming alive, something to help me remember that the cycle of the seasons goes on...that beginnings are around the corner. Just give me a flower poking through snow. Or a bird singing its cheerful song of hope. Or a single green bud on the tree branch. All to remind me that the cold times, the dark times, do have endings. That the Light always returns. 

 This Spring, in particular, I am awaiting the coming celebrating of all things resurrecting. I am especially eager that the signs of new life emerge...both outside and within. When all has seemed to be made of goodbyes, heartaches, pains I cannot cure, cruelty I cannot stop, opinions I cannot change, I am welcoming this season of revival in the soul more than ever. My heart is nearly gone from months of bad news, of all things broken and not right. I need a resurrection too!! 

 Somehow, as I gaze at these hints of Spring, I sense that this renewing I need is coming. I sense that God has heard these pleadings and has blessed redeeming in store for all the hard graces that I've had to endure. He has made it clear that all these things are set-ups for His greater plan, and I've had to trust - even when I wasn't anywhere near able to understand any of them. I have identified with the disciples of old when their Lord was laid in the grave. Just when they thought it was all over and Jesus wouldn't come through, there were in actuality about to see the miracle of their lives as He rose to higher glory and released them to go be His witnesses to a dying world. A rising miracle. A reminder to my doubting heart that He is always good, that I am always loved...that's what I'm seeking. 

 I smile as I once more breathe turn my heart heaven-ward and thank Him for His love that has never quit on humanity. Even at our worst, God's goodness has never ceased to flow as He continually takes the endings, the deaths, the pains we don't understand - and turns them into a beautiful masterpiece. And all these little signs, these hints of a world waking from slumber are just a foretelling of what's to come in the rising miracle He is planning!