New life is waking up all around me. The first spring flowers yawn open. The bees pay a visit. A pink-headed hummingbird swoops down only to pause, suspended and in motion, so close I can see its feathers glisten. The green of seedlings planted weeks ago peek up from the blackness around them. All reminders of this simple fact: winter doesn't last forever.
And like the spring, grace descends suddenly and without warning - except, of course, that it was always coming. It's showers saturate my soul, and my thirsty ache, the cold, the loneliness - it all drains away. You, I remember. How could I forget?
Yet somehow I have, yet again, in this winter. I've mistaken dormancy for death.
The child is not dead, You say, only sleeping. And You say it with a smile.
Lord, how can You smile at me? I see the bareness of my soul and feel defeated. There's no green here. Not a single blossom and certainly not any fruit. All I have left are roots. Roots reaching deeply, taking nourishment from good soil, soil tilled at Your direction. The rich loam of Your Body sustains me.
The branches are bare, but it is spring, and my roots run deep. Deep enough that Your call resonates through my bones, "Talitha Koum! Little girl, I say to You arise!"
You smile because You know that I need the winter to learn to trust, to return to my roots, to rely on You to bring back the spring. You smile because You made both for me - the chill of the winter and the vibrancy of spring.
As the air warms at Your hand, it is not only the flowers that yawn open, but my soul as well. "I'm here, Lord," I respond, "And ready to bloom."
This post is part of a blog hop by Spoken Women, an online community of Catholic women nurturing their creative callings. Click here to view the next post in this series "Beauty Rises."