A Tine for Every Purpose...

It seems like it has been raining for a month.

The mud is thick in my yard and my feet feel stuck as I step out of my car...

kind of like my life, sometimes.

The winter months are always hard for me. I love the beauty of the snow and the romantic notions of curling up under a blanket with a good book...
but the days are short and the nights are long and the coldness creeps into my soul.

If I was a practicing doctor, and not just one in name only, I'd diagnose myself as having seasonal affective disorder... but that's outside of my scope of practice ;-)

Still, the month of February is hard. The holidays are over, and the newness of the possibility of a brand new year is over, and it is cold and nasty and dark.

Some have expressed fear that I'm depressed, but I don't think that is true. I just think that I relate to the seasons...

and winter time is a harsh time, no matter how you look at it.

It's a season of death... of darkness...

but there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under the heavens...

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-12
Life comes out of darkness. The seed has to have time to germinate, and those seeds carried on the winds of late fall as the leaves fall have found their place and are buried by the wind in the dark soil.

There's life even when we can't see it.

I've been reminded of the fragility of life this past week... of the darkness and heaviness.

And of the beauty.

On Wednesday, Valentine's Day, a day when our hearts are filled with love, we were reminded that love often means we are vulnerable.

That morning, my Mama's heart broke as I sat in my baby's lap and let him cry on my shoulder, his heart breaking for the loss of his little buddy, Colton, who fought a valiant fight against DIPG for over a year and a half. Even in the darkness of his diagnosis, Colton's smile lit up a room, and lit up the hearts of all those impacted by him.

Later that day, my Mama's heart was shattered again as news from Parkland, Florida was filtered through the news. Senseless death. Hurting hearts. Questions and anger about why and how this could have happened...

and I felt the cold rain beat against my skin as I walked out of my Mom's house, and felt the coldness of that winter day all the way to my bones.

The next two days passed in a blur of work and ballgames and late nights...

because life has to be lived, no matter how bad we hurt. No matter how heavy the days are, we must keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And it's crazy how that life is lived... because even in the darkness there is small glimmers of light... small glimmers of life.

Saturday I stood in the cafeteria at Menifee County High School and thought again how fleeting life is.

There's something about a high school dance that always makes me wax poetic.

The girls in their dresses, hair curled and makeup just right, wobbling around on heels (ok, most of them walk better than I do...)

The guys in their ties and suspenders and sneakers...

And they hesitantly enter the dance floor. Self-consciously for most of them, they sway to the beat of the slow songs and somehow lose their timidity by the end of the night.

The whole lot of them, guys included, they are beautiful...

because this small frame of time will be over before they know it, and those days will just be a memory.

For some of them, it won't be the most pleasant, but for others, that night will be a highlight of their night.

They laugh to music I don't understand and join in on line dances, and as I stood there and watched them transform in front of my eyes, I got weepy...

because I'm an old sap but I also see the potential in each one of them.

This time... in their lives... it's a time for growth.

My boy was out there with them, moving to every song. He had hesitated on going to the dance, because it's been a difficult week and Colton's visitation was Saturday night, but I assured him that nobody would fault him for having a good time, because that's what we do in the face of death...

that (and Jesus), is how we overcome... by continuing to put a foot in front of the other and choosing to live in every minute.

So his time to dance was Saturday night... and dance he did. And I stood on the side and soaked it all in, not missing out on the gift that was in front of me.

Today I woke to glorious sunshine, and I don't think it was a coincidence. I thought of how Colton's smile was like that huge sunball outside my window... lighting up a room.

And I relished the idea that spring is on it's way.

Darkness will be over and the sun will warm our skin.

The life buried in the dark, cold ground will spring forth... and I'll have sunshine in my soul.

We have to appreciate every season... because we learn in the darkness and the cold. And He makes everything beautiful in it's own time... and He has placed eternity in our heart. Eternity, where there will be no time and maybe no winter...

Just glorious Sonshine.