“The season has changed, the bondage of your barren winter has ended, and the season of hiding is over and gone. The rains have soaked the earth and left it bright with blossoming flowers. The season for singing and pruning the vines has arrived. I hear the cooing of doves in our land, filling the air with songs to awaken you and guide you forth. Can you not discern this new day of destiny breaking forth around you? The early signs of my purposes and plans are bursting forth. The budding vines of new life are now blooming everywhere. The fragrance of their flowers whispers, “There is change in the air.” Arise, my love, my beautiful companion, and run with me to the higher place. For now is the time to arise and come away with me.” (Song of Songs 2:11-13 TPT)
Winters in Spring
Have you ever felt like you’re in a perpetual winter? I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma and let me tell you, the winters here can be quite long. There are hopeful days when it seems like the weather is changing and then boom! You look at the weather app only to see temperatures will drop to freezing the next day. It seems that wintery weather forecasts well into March and April. I understand that some people love the cold, while others enjoy the Springtime weather. Can you guess which one of those people I am? :)
It’s one thing when winter remains on the weather forecast too long, but it’s another when winter is your life season. Cold days and nights that feel unending as challenges and tests seem to pile up one on top of the other. I remember feeling this was in April 2007. I had just found out that I needed a major lung surgery and went through other health attacks on top of that. My mom said it was like blow after blow from every direction. I wondered why I was going through this, especially after I had recently turned my life around and was seeking God wholeheartedly. Have you ever been seeking God and it seemed like the attacks were greater than before? That was how I felt too. April 2007 felt like winter in Springtime.
Seasons Change
After walking through lung surgery to remove the malignant mass, I began to feel the season change. Although I was home recovering from surgery and regaining my ability to walk, talk, eat and drink, something new was springing forth. Little did I know that within just a few months, God would sent His love into my life by way of a special young man named Stephan Markland. I could have never seen it coming, yet His goodness began to overtake my life just as abruptly as the previous challenges. I went from being in the hospital in April 2007 to being engaged in June of that same year and then married by April 2009.
Song of Solomon 2:11-13 was our wedding scripture passage and is so rich with beauty, promises and change. Spring is my favorite season for so many reasons. Primarily because I’ve seen God turn my Winter of health challenges into Spring. April went from being a month of my greatest battle to the month of celebrating my greatest joys. Although my surgery was in April, I celebrated my wedding in April 2009, my daughter Grace born in April 2011, and there have been so many blessings released in the month of April. Our family even moved to Tulsa in April 2019!
Believe for your Spring
We serve a God who specializes in restoration. Who turns our mourning into dancing and our sorrow into joy. Who gives us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. I look back with gratutide and forward with expectation every year around this time. This year, on April 17th, I will celebrate 15 years cancer free.
I’m sure we all have a day or month on the calendar that reflects a winter moment or season of great pain and loss. I want to encourage you that God is able to bring not only healing but restoration in that same place on the calendar. I’m believing that for you today. Winter won’t last a lifetime.