Spring of course.

I was reading those exact words in a newsletter I was preparing for a client to go out shortly.  He wrote about the economic times and how some will use the winter to prepare for spring while others will just hibernate and do nothing.

His message inspired me and then I remembered what I’d seen when out in the garden earlier today.  A tree that was barren only a week ago and looking dead, now has pink blooms growing on it and small green buds forming.  I remembered thinking ‘it’s not spring yet’.

It’s still the middle of winter!  At least as far as the time of year is concerned. And yet, just in these past 2 or 3 days, although we’ve had rain and wind that has been cold, the temperature has actually been higher than it normally is this time of year.

Have the plants become confused or are they following their normal pattern?  I can’t remember what they looked like this time last year.  And yet there is this promise of spring around the corner.

Many of you know the turmoil our family have been through in the past 10 months. Life for us has seemed bleak and wintery, and we have wondered if we would ever smile and enjoy life again.  But God has been good and brought many wonderful and new things into our lives.  And friends have become more dear and much closer to us.  Nothing or no-one will ever replace our beloved Miriam but life does continue even if we haven’t wanted it to.  We’ve been in a winter but now there’s the promise of spring around the corner.

Graham and I enjoyed a wonderful 4 weeks away in Canada and Alaska, away from our normal lives, away from everything that served as reminders and, for awhile, we were allowed to be ourselves again in an anonymous kind of way amongst strangers.

Our eldest daughter is expecting her first baby and we’re going to be grandparents towards the end of the year.

Another daughter has bought a home in the country near her beloved horses and we enjoyed visiting her and sharing in her happiness at her housewarming.

I’ve renewed an old passion (photography) that is becoming a consuming obsession in some ways – it’s given me something to get excited about and want to do constantly.  It’s got me out of the house.

And we’re planning some changes in our lives as well and looking towards what will be our future.

Yes, spring is on its way and while winter is still here, there’s a promise of what is to come and what might be.  We can look ahead again.

Because, as my client said in his newsletter, ‘spring will come inevitably.  It always does and it always has’.

Solomon 2:11-12  See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.