A Quiet Season

I'm in the midst of feeling kind of quiet inside.    There are times when I feel like I could say so much about so many things, and then there are these other times.   Where I just feel kind of blah, tired, and not much of a conversationalist.   These times don't happen very often, so when they do, I notice them.

I think sometimes it's so easy to go through life without experiencing all the seasons.    I've often told people that I would be happy to live somewhere where it's 70 degrees year-round.   To not have winter?   Sounds great to me!     (except for all the winter food I love!)    The winter feels long, cold, and at times just dead.

I was reminded this past week of some hard things from the past that have very much gone by and by.   It's easy for me to have something difficult, or even tragic, take place, and just push right by it.   To not really feel it.   To not allow it to remake me.   To simply keep going, in spite of it.    I truly believe that this is a weakness of mine, even though in the past I have prided myself on the ability to keep going.   In an effort to survive, I deny myself the right to feel.   The right to be angry or sad.    The right to mourn.

This past Sunday, our pastor taught about forgiveness.   He used the illustration of how unforgiveness is like strapping a person to your back, and carrying them with you everywhere you go.    To not allow them to have forgiveness really only enslaves us.    I thought about some of the girls that I am getting to know.   I thought about how many of them have been raped, abused, neglected, and shamed to no end.     I know when I hear about what has happened to them, I can barely let my hatred go toward the offender.    Much less, how hard it is for them to even think about forgiving those who have sinned against them.    And how, even though it seems the hardest thing to do, to cut that person loose, to no longer carry them with them everywhere they go,  the only way that they are ever free, is to do just that.   Otherwise, it only creates hatred, bitterness, scorn, and malice in them.

As I looked at the bushes outside on Sunday, I was so excited to see the tiniest of life on them once again.   All around, the plant still looks hard and lifeless.   Dead.    But then, the tiniest spot of green coming from the center.     I long to know that out of the deadest places in us, something so delicate and beautiful can still come forth.   To have new life.   It is a quiet reminder to me that there is hope through even the darkest of seasons.