This is the time of year when I begin to wonder if spring is ever going to come. Not that there has ever been a year when spring has not. I’m sure MOST of you can relate. 🙂
I have also been thinking a lot about the seasons lately and their relationship to my own life. What can they represent? First of all, I think about opposition. I would never appreciate the warmth of spring sunshine without the bitter cold of winter. And autumn would not be welcome without the heat of the summer. So it is with life. How would I know the happy without the sad?
I also find that there is a definite cycle to life, just as the seasons come around every year. There is usually a time of happiness and prosperity, a warmth permeates this part of the cycle. And I feel that this is a time of preparation for what is to come next. The hard times, times when sometimes I wonder how I can go on, whatever the trial may be. Things feel colder, more bleak, like winter. But there is always the promise of the figurative springtime. When things are warmer, and it is more pleasant to live in the outside world and easier to see the beauties of life. When things are hard, it can be difficult to see the beauties that surround me. But they are always there. And so it is with winter.
The other morning I woke to a fog. And all the trees were frosted over. While driving the kids to school, Jenny remarked, “It looks like the trees and bushes have white flowers all over them!” It was breathtaking and it was hard for me to keep my eyes on the road. I thought immediately that this was a reminder for me that spring is truly on its way. Maybe not in the next week or month, but it will come. And things will be warm again and I will be able to go outside without a coat and shoes. And the world will be green again! For now I will learn what I should be learning from this winter. To be grateful. To be patient. To take advantage of the snuggling and hot chocolate and warmth that can be found any time of year. I personally can always find that warmth when I think about my Savior and the hope that He has given me and all the world.
As I was writing this, I was thinking back to a talk given by Joseph B. Wirthlin in October 2006. He spoke about the darkness and sorrow that was felt on the Friday when Jesus Christ was crucified, but how that darkness did not last as He was resurrected on the following Sunday. I want to share the end of what he said because I cannot say it better than he did.
“Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.
But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.
No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.”
And spring will come again as it does every year. Happy wintering. 🙂