Snow in spring

Sometimes it snows in May.

Just when you are starting to think warm thoughts, pull out the shorts and t-shirts, and plan your summer adventures. Just when you are thinking the long, cold winter is finally at an end—you can throw open the windows and breathe deep.

Suddenly you find yourself huddled in front of the woodstove—again—on a gloomy May day, watching snow—SNOW, for Pete’s sake!—cover the new buds on your apple trees.

It may be hard not to be grumpy.

It might be difficult to keep from whining.

You might have to refrain from marching right out and chucking a snowball at the nearest child frolicking in the sinful stuff.

But then your daughter tugs at your hand and says, “Doesn’t it smell good, Mom?” And the sun breaks through the clouds, and you hear the dripping from the trees and the birdsong rising through the cold air, and you see the vivid green poking up through white, and you remember.

Spring always comes. Life always follows death.

And sometimes the things that mean cold darkness today will mean lush new growth tomorrow.

Sometimes the brightest spring emerges from the darkest winter.

Today this snow reminds me of the God whose ways are much higher than mine, whose thoughts are not my thoughts. He tells me:

“As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:10-12)

If I stop and still my heart, releasing my expectations, I can see the beauty. And I can almost hear the mountains singing.