Winter and Spring

There are times when we just want the cold, harsh Winter to end and the warm, blissful Spring to get here early. I'm in a stage in my day to day life right now where getting up in the morning is difficult. I don't feel like going to work. I don't feel like grocery shopping. Household chores are more difficult than they have ever been, and spending time and energy on important relationships in my life feels just as difficult as chores. I find myself avoiding things that I usually love to do. All I want to do is sit on the couch and binge watch awful shows. All I want out of life is to feel more like my usual self. I find myself in the midst of Winter, longing for Spring.

I've been pondering the concept of the seasons a lot. Here in the US, we don't like discomfort. Don't like the cold? Have a heater. Don't like the hot? An air conditioner is a must. Do you have pain? Here's a prescription. Don't know how to deal with the death of a loved one? Put on a smile and pretend you're fine. We ask each other all the time "How's a goin'?", but when the answer given is genuine, we don't know how to respond. The truth is, we don't deal well with Winter in our culture. If things start to get dark in our lives, we do all we possibly can to try to force our way into Spring. Spring is where we don't have to learn to cope with being cold, sad or lonely. We try our best to force warmth back into our lives, and sometimes it works.

Do you remember what happens when Spring comes in the middle of Winter? The blossoms start to bloom. The smell of apple and peach blossoms are pungent. The tulips start to shoot little green stubs out of the ground, and tiny bright green leaves start to sprout on the tips of the tree branches. But it's still Winter, and before the growth really starts to sprout, a freeze hits. All that beautiful new life dies and falls to the ground, and there is no fruit in the summer. The trees have spent all the energy they had on the first bloom, and the little flowers never get the chance to bud into little green apples and peaches that grow into life-giving sustenance.

Our culture is always in a rush. We don't like winter... we don't like darkness or pain or long cold nights. We try to "suck it up" or "be strong for him/her/them". But times of difficulty are necessary for growth, and if we make our way to the warmth of spring too early, we miss out on the true purpose of Winter: To provide time to heal, rest, and remember the blessing of the warmth of the sun and the life it brings.

I hope that this blog post is encouraging to those of you who are in the midst of a cold, harsh winter right now. There is importance in processing through your grief, depression, difficult life situation, or healing in the place that you are in right now. It's OK to be in a state of Winter. And it's important to have people around you who know that you are in that state right now. We cannot survive the cold in complete isolation while we try to convince those around us that we are in Spring. Otherwise, we form beautiful blossoms that are intended to turn into succulent fruit, and instead freeze and fall to the frozen ground. All of life moves in seasons. Some winters are longer and colder than others, but Spring is on its way. And it's worth the process of Winter. So learn to embrace the cold in your life so that when the warmth comes, it brings with it all the glory of sustained new life!