Today is the first day of Spring. However, I don't know about where you live, but here in Middle Tennessee it does NOT feel like Spring today. There is a biting wind whipping through the cold air and we are even under a sever freeze warning for the weekend.
I froze in February. It wasn't just because of the cold, it was me. I froze.
I had some amazing things happen in February. I had my first official speaking gig, I was a part of an amazing destination wedding, and I also helped produce a massive fundraising banquet for a ministry that matters greatly to me and my family. But in the midst of it, I got terribly lost.
My heart was all over the place. Anxiety and doubt was keeping me awake at night. I was really frustrated that all of my grand ideas about carrying out the work I began in January were stalling. I wasn't living up to my unrealistic expectations I placed on myself, or even the realistic ones, for that matter, and I was drowning in a sea of confusion. I couldn't even find the words to communicate what was happening to me. My words felt compromised. My vision seemed blurry. I felt I had completely mis-read what I was supposed to doing. I just completely froze.
While I was in Savannah, I finally heard the Lord speak into my fear. I felt the paralysis begin to thaw. And I started to see the light that was coming. And I knew in my heart, I would not stay in the winter.
However, here we are today, its the first day of Spring and it doesn't feel like we want it to.
Its cold.
Its dreary.
We are in danger of freezing over again.
But it doesn't change the fact that today marks the first day of Spring.
So despite how it feels, the truth remains unchanged.
Where do you need it to be Spring in your life? Where do you need to live outside of how it feels?
Whether you need to circle the truth on your calendar in bright red marker (remind yourself that YES indeed it is the first day of Spring and winter is ending!) or whether your heart needs re-focusing on the things that are unchanging about your business/work/calling, your family, your body, your heart, can you take 5 minutes to gift that to yourself today? Put it in front of you where you will be reminded outside of what your heart and mind, and even the temperature, says.
““See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” ”
Don't freeze.
Don't give up.
Winter is over. You are alive. And you still have something to say, a work to do, and something only YOU can give to each day.
Welcome, Spring.
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*Image Notes:
-The tulip image was created using a stock photo from Shay Cochrane's Stock Shop
-The image of the lily bloom is an iPhone image I shot outside the Historic Cotton Exchange in Savannah, GA