Originally published Tuesday, 05 November 2013.
Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world’s a choir—and singing! Song of songs 2:11-12 (MSG)
The last two years of my life have been hard.
There have been good times, beautiful moments, and stretches of joy, but much of the last 24 months have been overshadowed by my husbands’ cancer treatments.
There were many times, when I was driving backwards and forwards to Doctors appointments, or leaving my husband in hospital, when I wondered what it would take for God to change my life.
It wasn’t that I wanted a different life; simply that I dreamt of a life without trouble, without hard things, without illness.
If God can change seasons how hard can it be for him to change my life? (tweet this)
Last winter, I watched leaves turn orange, then brown and fall to the ground through the large windows in the Oncology outpatients. From those same windows I saw how months later the trees turned green and spring had arrived.
This year I found myself looking out of hospital windows again as the trees lost their leaves and my husband received a stem cell transplant.
It is spring here now. I haven’t seen what it looks like at the hospital. But from my window at home I see pink buds struggling to free themselves and I hear birds singing.
I look out the window and I’m reminded about God’s fingerprint on every season.
Mindful of the questions that I have asked so many times, “God, can you change my life? Can you take away these hard things?”
Spring blossom reminds me that if God can change the seasons he can change my life. (tweet this)
However, that blossom also tells a story, about how sometimes it’s out of the hard things in our lives that beauty is born.
Winter is a difficult season for plants. Often plants don’t survive it. But without that hard season there would be no blossoms in spring.
Even in hard seasons God is busy bringing life from death. (tweet this)
He is creating beauty from barrenness and painting colour back into lackluster lives.
I think about the blossoms - how their beauty depends on the hard season - and I reflect on these two hard years, and wonder what splendour God still has in store for me if I’ll hold on till spring time.
Ponder: What season of life do you feel like you are in now? When you look back at your life can you see God preparing beauty in hard times? If so, would you share some of your story in the comments to encourage others?
Prayer: Lord, help me to trust you in every season of my life. Amen.
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