spring is coming

Last week I did some planting. I'd been putting off putting my bulbs in, but I knew my time was limited - if I wanted to get them in before the rain really began, that is. So one afternoon, the clock ticking loudly in my ears, I used a small window of time to plant some promises for springtime.

Winter around here is long. At least, it feels that way to me. After autumn's brilliant beginning, the crisp, cool beauty of an Oregon October...it starts to rain. And then, it rains and rains and rains. It pretty much rains until April or May, with a few glad days of sunshine here and there. But mostly, it rains.

After nearly ten years of living in the Pacific Northwest, I've acclimated. Well...I've sort of acclimated. Possibly, I'm just resigned.

Whatever the case, I decided to plant something to remind me of the promise of spring. Something to encourage me after months of drizzly days. New growth...dashes of color...fragrance. Assurance that, no matter how gray the skies may appear, spring is coming.

I don't know where you are today. Maybe hurting. Maybe grieving. Maybe you're feeling the burden of the daily grind, wondering if what you're doing matters. Believe me, I've been there. Some days I'm still there. In the midst of wiping bottoms and scrubbing pots, of being positive when my kids protest doing their schoolwork, of feeling the seeming futility of chores that are never really finished. What does it matter, I wonder?

When my 5-year-old son heard about the bulbs I'd planted, he went to check it out. Surveying the level surface of soil and bark chips, he was puzzled. "I don't see anything," he frowned. There were no brave shoots, no new life, not a single petal. He couldn't see any change. What difference had my minutes with the trowel made?

And I told him the same thing that I tell myself, that I'm telling you.

"Just wait; you'll see. Even if you don't see any difference right now... In time, it's going to be beautiful."

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ~Galatians 6:9