And Yet...

Spring is finally coming and haven't I waited all this time? Temps soar and birdies sing and all the earth feels like it's bursting into life again...and yet... 

Sunshine streams in the windows as the arctic winter grows dim and snow melts rapidly, soaking into thawing soil and watering dry ground...and yet... 

And yet... 

The outdoor doesn't seem to match the indoors and what's happening around me doesn't duplicate what's happening in me and somehow I thought I'd feel more aligned with it all and less removed. distant. alone. 

After so many prayers for a turning around and the renewing of my soul, it's like I'm still stuck in winter when all I want is to be embracing the hope of season's change. I see the blinding rays and think to myself, if only that was what I felt in my heart right now. To be honest, all I feel is more dark. more sadness. more stuck in the past. 

It's strange how you can grow so accustomed to the dark that you forget, however much you've hoped for it, how to welcome the light. It startles. Blinds. 

Chest pounds and heart races and I struggle to breathe. Struggle to fight back the tears, the frustration of years of fending off panic attacks and flashbacks and triggers and sometimes it all takes more courage than I feel I've got left in me. I feel spent, worn down, defeated. In a moment of vulnerability, I'm met with questions of my own value and worth - have lies thrown in my face as I want to scream a big, fat WHY in God's face and suddenly I'm spinning in a downward spiral and I can't stop the free-fall. Can't stop the pain. Can't control what I wish I could control - all because it feels in this second like it's out of control. 

And yet... 

What if this free-fall was actually not a falling out of but a falling into? What if the sinking was merely a going deeper into Grace and what if all this messy was simply making room for blessing? What if the things I fear the most are really bringing me full circle to what I need the most... which is always and only Him? 

I look out at the blue sky and greening trees and wonder how - how can I get that alive-ness inside of me? How can I grasp onto something firm when I feel it all shaking underneath? How can that light find its way to my heart when I feels like I'm the furthest thing from it? 

Thoughts wander and I find myself praying for God to bring back the spring to my heart. This perpetual falling is wearing me thin and I just want to open up to life again. I get tired of the darkness and I wonder sometimes if it'll ever leave. 

And yet... 

Of all the times I've been in the dark, I've learned never to doubt the One who is there in it with me. I've learned never to question what is true even as I doubt it often. I've learned that what feels isn't usually what is and that God is always on a quest to help me see beyond what I think I know. And, even in this clash of two seasons, the continuity of God is still present - guiding me, loving me back into the surety of His care. Reminding me that hope is never too far away and that the light I see only externally now will become an internal reality. 

Just maybe not today.