When Seasons Change (A Five Minute Post)

Lisa-Jo says, write about when seasons change in just five minutes!

When they change I throw leaves in the air, have pictures snapped in Lincoln Park sunshine, revel in the possibility of God making something new and bright in the world. And when spring comes with its streaks of dirt on jeans and smell of rain-soaked lilac bushes and with the promise of rest from the busy school year I laugh and throw my windows open.

But truth be told, when the other seasons change, the ones of people, familiar places and coffee cups and sounds (the clink of the mug on the table, the sigh, the door creaking open) - when those appear I run, or hide, or hibernate. I throw on blanket after blanket and I worry and I fret and I grasp my old familiar self firmly in my hand and say, "I can't do this." And when those seasons change I feel myself looking a white canvas of winter, wondering if God will decide to paint spring on it again.

And He does. He always has. I moved from high school into college, I moved from Boston to Washington, DC and back, I moved in and out of Orthodoxy and lurked in the vestibule of Catholicism and receive Communion from Anglicans and all the while God is painting the canvas of my life bright with His colors. It won't always stay the white of winter's hidden promises. It won't always stay unknown and frightening. Someday, maybe even soon, a new burst of blossoming weekly phone calls or letters or glasses of wine or cross-cultural, cross-country, cross-oceans of hearts will emerge.

He has to give us the canvas of winter so that He can paint spring.

Love,
Hilary