I am engaged to the most amazing man on earth.
Okay, I’m sure most people think that. While there may be some engagements marked by turmoil and tension, I’m sure a good number of them feel like a blissful emotional high. What else could propel someone into signing the rest of his or her life away to someone? Riding the momentum of whatever moment the question was popped, you come sliding into the ceremony with hopefully a pretty high level of joy.
I am full of joy these days. I seem to be walking through a spiritual, emotional, relational and physical springtime. The promises that seemed dim in winter now come into bloom.
My darling and I both marvel at the level of contentment we experience with one another. Maybe everyone feels this way, but I don’t imagine they do, because everyone’s story is different and so their relationships will be different. Our story is certainly one that strikes most people as uncommon. To fall in love while never stepping foot in the same room as each other. To know we would marry within 48 hours of our first hug. To make promises across oceans and dream of a life where one of the only elements that seems really clear is that we will be together.
I have long loved the changing of seasons and how the transition of nature mirrors the shifts that happen within my heart. God speaks to me through the whispers of the trees and the soft touch of sunlight. This year the parallels have been stunning. Last summer was fruitful and full of joy, autumn a burst of hard work revealing its harvest, winter the bitter barrenness of loss and grief and goodbyes. Spring has been beautiful, buds of new life poking through the dirt and reminding me that there is hope even where it looked like death was reigning rampant. Around me that new life is starkly obvious as well. Street after street in my neighborhood has been filled trees covered in pink blossoms. Everywhere I look is flashes of color, framed within rich green grass and brilliant blue skies. Morning after morning I awake and am moved to tears of joy as I consider all the beauty the Lord has woven through my steps in the last months and years.
Now as I experience these things I can see purpose in the pain of past seasons. In the conversations of preparation for marriage we have both remarked how we believe the deep appreciation we feel for each other now would probably not exist to the degree it does were it not for past experiences of rejection and heartache. I don’t see it all the time, but there are moments now where I look back and everything seems to fall into place. There are so many things I questioned that finally make sense.
No matter how many winters I walk through, my heart seems to struggle with holding on to the hope that they will end. No matter how many spring times I encounter, I never cease to be completely overwhelmed with how the cold and darkness have perfectly prepared my heart for the blooming of new life. I have needed winter as much as I have longed for it to end.
This week the petals have begun to fall from the trees. They can’t stay there if the trees are going to grow strong and yield their fruit in its proper season. As they fill the gutters and begin to wilt they release a fragrance that was never noticeable when they still clung together on the branches.
Spring is ending. The heat and joy of summer is coming. My heart is breaking again, releasing, letting go of fresh blossoms so that a new season’s richness can take their place. Much of me would rather cling to the beauty and cool of spring, but I know in being broken and changed once more my life can release a fragrance of worship that could not be extracted otherwise. It feels a little scary, and I have to daily bring myself back to the throne of grace and commit to trust. Spring has been so sweet, and I am sad to see it go, but I know the harvest is coming.
Beyond it is another winter. I know that too will come. As I fall more deeply in love and dream of the future I wonder what the next frost will look like and what will be stripped away. Perhaps much of the beauty in the seasons is that they’re fleeting. When people ask me for my favorite, I always say, “All of them. By the time one is over, I am ready for the next.”
Summer is coming, bright, ecstatic, busy and lovely. It will be beautiful and then will yield to the more subtle rhythms of fall. For now, I will breathe in deeply the last gusts of spring that swirl around me, and try to listen to the quiet voice that asks my heart to be content in the present instead of worrying about what will come.