Next week will “officially” be Spring. However, in the far Northern reaches of our country, Spring is a misnomer. One of my favorite quotes is by Henry Van Dyke. He says, “The first day of Spring is one thing and the first spring day another.” The first spring day could be in June around here!
March is the season of mud, water, puddles, mud, lakes, rivers, mud, mud, and more mud. Currently, I have to walk through the slushy snow in my yard AROUND an enormous puddle on my sidewalk that is ankle deep. At night it freezes into a small ice skating rink, but by 10 a.m. it’s a very cold, wet trap for unsuspecting mailmen and visitors.
My garden is more of the same; melting snow and mud. Spring heralds the changing of the season and here in Duluth, it’s mostly just very, very messy.
Change is messy.
The past year of my life has been incredibly painful personally for me. I’m still struggling with who I am, who I am supposed to be and where my identity is found. There are circumstances that I have to admit have rocked me to the core and changed me in ways that I sometimes don’t like at all.
I wonder what will come out of all of this change? It’s a mess right now. I feel a little like my yard. Wet, muddy, slushy, messy. I wonder if underneath the mud and mess there is a beautiful flower garden just waiting to burst forth. I think there might be, but I think it’s going to be painful to find it and a bit of a mess first.
So, pardon my mud. Pardon my mess. God’s still working on me.
Perhaps you have someone else in your life who looks a little, or maybe a lot like a mess. Maybe you are a mess. Change is messy. Keep pushing through it. Those irises and crocuses and pansies, the first harbingers of spring, have to work hard to push through the snow and slush and mud. Be gentle with yourself and others.
“There’s a better version of me, that I can’t quite see,
But things are gonna change.
Right now I’m a total mess and right now I’m completely incomplete.
But things are gonna change.”
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