Spring is Muddy

Spring and I have a love hate relationship. I LOVE that there is more sunlight, that temperatures start to rise and that there are signs of new life everywhere. I love the hope spring brings. However, I also hate spring. I often tell people it is my least favorite season. It is SO muddy and dirty. The snow melts and EVERYTHING where I live is covered in the salt and sand and dirt from the roads. A winter's worth of blown or plowed trash, dead leaves and animal droppings are everywhere. Everything is grey and brown. Oh, and bugs and critters come back. I live near a park where spring means ants, beetles, mosquitoes, stinkbugs and more. It means mice and skunks and squirrels who are hungry getting into trash cans and gardens and so on. It means my cat brings me "gifts" of these critters and my dog is always in need of a bath (even right after a bath). So spring and I don't always get along.

I do have a favorite spring image though. This photo of pansies I think growing under the snow, poking out through the dirt and dead leaves is a favorite photo of mine. It's not beautiful or artistic but it speaks to me. Pansies are an annual flower. They are supposed to last only one season. Still, here are 2 or 3 small pansies who not only survived the cold winter but are growing and soon will be blossoming. This picture reminds me that through the cold dark seasons of life God is growing us, strengthening us. It reminds me that change isn't pretty. Change, even good change, is muddy and messy and sometimes even ugly but in the end we blossom.

Things are changing at our house. It seems our season of waiting might be coming to an end. We are starting to "see the light at the end of the tunnel" as the saying goes. The season coming is going to be hard and messy and complicated and hopefully beautiful! We are starting to get answers for our girls health struggles. There are answers for treatments and healing. I know that nothing about the next few months will be easy, but I have hope. I have faith that God is working out all the details and creating something beautiful under all this mess. And I have peace, a peace I can't explain. Our world is about to get even crazier and I have a peace about it. Seems odd to me. But then I remember these 2 pictures and I remember (OK full disclosure - I remember the Bible says something about peace beyond understanding and I google it and find it) Philippians 4:7 says "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." I have peace about the muddiness that is to come and faith that spring will bring something wonderful!