"What about the ones whose souls aren’t in a season of spring?"
I couldn’t help but ask the question as March 20 rolled around, the first day of spring. Spring inevitably ignites emotions of new life, hew hope, new beginnings. And why wouldn’t it? It is a beautiful season where color is brought back onto the canvas of nature, sun filled days last longer and warmth begins to move through the air with just enough of the winter’s crisp air lingering. But this year, as spring came, I couldn’t help but to think about everyone who is fighting for hope in a new beginning.
The one fighting to believe something new could emerge out of what feels like a death within or around them. A death to a dream, a relationship, a future hoped for, a loss of a loved one, a failure...
The one in a season of the soul that is conflicting with the season surrounding the senses- struggling with pain, hopelessness or grief while the rest of the world is blooming full of hope and joy. When the circumstances of your life and the reality of your heart feels more like you’re sitting among a sea of rocks, rather than a field with fresh flowers budding.
Those of you who are sitting in the thick of rocks, beside me, wondering where our buds are. Wondering if fresh flowers are even possible in a place that seems desolate and grey.
Spring can be difficult to embrace if it’s a painful reminder of something you’ve been desperate to forget… a reminder that something did die. The death of it means what you have known of it, will never be.
We have to grieve it; we have to mourn it, in order for new to give way. Even if the sprouting of it can’t be seen yet. New is coming and sometimes we don’t want a new. Or we’re not ready for the new. And that’s ok.
The only way I have learned to get through the rocks is one at a time. One rock at a time. One day at a time. One moment at a time. With hope that each moment, each rock, will lead you to the other side. And before you know it, you’re not only beginning to see buds of something new coming through the cracks, but you're surrounded by towering, strong evergreen trees.
While in the midst of the most painful season of my life, a close friend of mine asked me a simple, powerful question that I will never forget. My heart and soul were in the dead of winter with no hope of spring in sight. I couldn’t even imagine there being another spring for me. I knew in my head there would be, but my heart was far from living in or hoping for that reality. How on earth was I going to get through this one, I couldn’t imagine it. My visual mind was at a loss for vision in that season and I just couldn’t imagine what the other side of this could look like, how I would even get there or how I could even want to get there. I didn’t want to mourn the death I was grieving because I didn’t want it to be gone. All I could think or say was, I just can’t imagine the other side of this.
My friend looked at me with eyes of deep compassion and pain. The kind of pain when you see someone you deeply care about hurting, the kind of pain you carry WITH someone. I think it’s one of the most honoring types of pain. Being trusted and allowed into someone else’s pain. She looked at me and asked…
"What about tomorrow? Can you imagine what tomorrow could look like?"
I remember when she asked me, my head pulled up, tilted to one side as I thought about her question. My tears ceased for a moment. It was the first sign of something beginning to bud between the rocks in that season. The truth was I could imagine what walking through tomorrow could look like, tomorrow wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as all the collective tomorrows that made up my future. Tomorrow looked like… I will get up, do this or that, get this done and finish that, then go to bed. Simple enough.
In her own words, she was telling me to take one rock at a time… by taking one tomorrow at a time.
Right around the same time she asked the question, I saw framed words directly ahead of me on her wall, in my line of sight:
“When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
Perfectly timed and perfectly written. The words are the King James translation of Psalm 61:2. Most translations put it this way, “from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Tears came back to the forefront of my sight. But this time it was a mix of the pain kind-of-tears and a small glimmer of hope kind-of-tears.
God used my friend to lead me to Him, to the rock that is higher, stronger and better. Leading me to embrace each moment and rock while standing on the rock of Jesus and while my heart was faint and overwhelmed.
“be so close to me that I can hear your heartbeat and feel your breath of life back into my soul… Your presence will guide and carry me through the present.”
This was a prayer I found written in my journal at the beginning of that season. It became my lifeline. His presence in each present moment, in each rock of today. And then tomorrow.
Sometimes you need other people beside you to remind you and help you spot the little buds popping up in between the rocks. Beauty will come up from rocks, something will bud and eventually you will be standing in a forest of hope. Your heart will experience spring, again. And it’s ok if you’re not there yet. I have to remind myself I don’t have to clear all the rocks at once. I don’t have to try to handle all my tomorrows, today. I can’t imagine it and that is still ok. But as for tomorrow… I can imagine another one.
And then one day, we’ll look back over all of our tomorrows and we’ll see something has been growing out of the rocks this whole time. Standing tall like the evergreen pine trees off in the distance. It’ll be more than we imagined it would be and we’ll be walking in the midst of the pines of new life, new hope, and new beginnings, again.
