Gratitude for Spring

A reflection on my deep appreciation for Spring

The world quivers, and I feel the thunder in my bones. I hear the rumble and the grumble before the cracking boom of the thunder. Preceded by severe flashes of lightning, as if signaling the all-clear for the thunder to come crashing in. The air is electric. The ground anticipates the storm approaching. There is a calmness first, almost an eagerness. At first, a whisper, a rustling of distant papers in the office of the world. Ready to file the Season of Spring. A boom, a flash, a streak touching the distant ground as if directing the rain where to pour itself out. A closer boom and flash from cloud to cloud overhead. The rain falls, here, on me, on my head. Letting me know that I am not the thirsty ground. Yet I appreciate it all the same. Spring is a season of resurrections. The blooms and colors of nature indicate that God is real, directing and enjoying. I want to be like that. I want to enjoy the Spring that He has given me.

Spring brings me to a season of reflection. To the point of what used to be. The winter passes and spring seems to well up from the ground. The woods begin to burst with colors and smells long held dormant by the cold grip of winter. The birds, nature’s heralds, begin to proclaim the coming newness. The spring, earth’s silent symphony, begins to play its song. The wind blows differently, the rain falls softer and more often, and the plants begin to bloom. Even the ground feels softer underfoot as if it is relaxing its shoulders after keeping them bunched up from the cold for so long.

What is in spring that compels me so? I believe in the resurrection and I think that has a large part to do with it. The forest falls in the autumn and is, in some ways, reborn in the spring, after long months, dead and dormant. Walking amongst the woods here I can see the patches of dead grass and layers of leaves laying about, but I know that any day now there will be a sudden greenness. Where once there was silent grayness, suddenly there is greenery and life. Daisies, dandelions, and daffodils stake their claim in the ground. The trees slowly bud and the forsythias display their proud gold leaves. I know God is working, always working, tirelessly in his knowing ways to bring and to bloom the seasons in their time, with nothing out of place.

I am eager for more spring. There is an air of expectation here, in me. A land of opportunity so closely tied with the season, a restart, a beginning. We need spring to bring forth its timely abundance, its first fruits of the year. The earth gives its best to the Lord and we can enjoy it all the while. I am grateful for this season, this land, this Spring.