It’s finally here! Spring has arrived! It’s a season I look forward to each year. Maybe it’s because it follows the season I like the least. Or maybe it’s because the earth bursts forth with life. It might be because the temperatures gradually warm toward my desired preference of 75 degrees. The reason I might appreciate the most, however, is the beautiful hope I find in this season.
There’s just something about a new season.
I’m encouraged when a new season begins. It’s as if we’re given a fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning. A new season means a new, beautiful hope!
Whether astronomically or in life.
Just like we experience the astronomical seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, you and I also encounter different seasons of life.
season :: any period or time; interval; occasion; term
Winter seasons–in life and astronomically–can be trying. This winter we received roughly 30 inches of snow here in eastern Iowa. 30! (It’s no wonder we are all ready for spring around here!) Doesn’t it feel like we’ve also been living in a winter season with this pandemic? It’s been a trying one as well. (But I don’t need to tell you that, do I?) And sometimes trying seasons feel the longest in duration.
Yet, even in this feels-like-it’s-never-going-to-end season, you and I remain hopeful.
We continue to cling to our faith. We continue to trust God is bringing good out of what appears to be bad. And, the reality that gives me hope is this: this is a season, and seasons come and go. Like allergy season or flu season or planting season. It’s a period of time. A season doesn’t stay around forever, so we can trust this season of pandemic won’t stay around forever, either.
Just like with this new season of spring, I believe a new season of life is on the horizon. One of beautiful hope and promise.
Beautiful hope is found in a new season.
Spring in Iowa is slow. In a way I wish I could wake up on the first day of spring and find my tulips and daffodils and crocuses in full bloom, the grass lush and green, and my flowerbeds and our garden ready for growing season. Instead, remnants of winter remain today. Everything still looks like winter (minus the snow, thank goodness). There’s currently more brown than green. My flowerbeds are covered with dead leaves and twigs and sticks. It almost appears as if spring forgot what it’s supposed to do.
But we know better.
“Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.”
Virgil A. Kraft
Spring is a beautiful reminder of how God can turn what’s dark and dirty and drab into something amazingly beautiful. For soon the green grass will overtake the brown. Flowers will emerge in full color. Buds will appear on the trees. Spring will appear in full splendor! What a beautiful hope!
The same thing goes for our lives.
Even if life currently appears to be dark and dirty and drab, God is at work in making all things new. Growth will emerge in what once looked lifeless. God will create vibrant color in what was once colorless. He will transform the dirty into beauty.
But, He’s not in a hurry, and neither is spring. It takes time to bring beautiful hope to fruition. It’s not a quick, check-off-the-list kind of thing. God takes His time to intricately create beauty and splendor and magnificence. He knows what He’s doing, and He’s good at doing it. He’s good at being God. So, you and I can trust His timing. God is working in ways you and I cannot yet see.
Faith means being sure of the things we hope for and knowing that something is real even if we do not see it.
Hebrews 11:1 NCV
This is the beautiful hope we cling to.
We may not see it yet, but God’s best is coming. In spring, in this season, and in life. And when it does, the waiting, the winter seasons, the wondering will all be worth it.
Stay encouraged, friend. A new season is on the horizon.
Much love,
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