Winter into Spring
Spring, spring is a time of creation, new growth. Spring generally follows winter which is a season in which a lot of living things enter into hibernation. Growth and newness is ceased or dramatically slowed. There are many species however that do thrive at this time, life never just stops. Even when something or someone dies the matter that made them a being, a life form gets broken down into it’s component parts and the chemicals become in time new life, new organic matter. So even those who believe that the physical is all there is know that what makes them never ends. There is no dead end.
Last year my year started off with a bit of a bang I did things I had never done before. I moved into a new flat with a new flat mate. I was a few months into a new job in a completely unfamiliar field. I fell in love for the first time and all was right with the world. My world was as I had seen it in my dreams. I travelled in body and spirit to new heights where I had no idea how to live, in territory I had little experience occupying. Spring had come and was waning into a most glorious summer. I don’t know if this happens to others but amidst all this growth and light taking place the darkness in my heart and in my relationships with others came to the surface; unveiled for what it is. A stench of death arose from these dark balls of pain and hate that I carried around in me. I faced up to some of these and God transformed death to life, dark to light even if it was only a process of another layer being made right.
My heart, faith, spirit was stretched, made bigger somehow. I am getting the sense in my life that it is impossible for me not to be continually growing in some way. I do have a certain amount of choice in what way I will grow. For instance I went through a very tough time as the year neared its end. A relationship broke down my heart was broken I felt lower than I had felt in a long time. My work was sapping my soul of life. It seemed everything that I had sowed into was dying or given enough time would die. I contemplated running away from my home hoping that pain and disappointment wouldn’t follow me. But as the saying goes “wherever you go there you are”. I couldn’t escape what I had been through and what that was doing to me but I could ask God to make things new. I could ask my Father, the creator of all that is good and true and beautiful to bring good from the bad. To shine light into the darkness within and shadow casters without. I did that slowly; trusting more and more in Him, in His love for me and all those I have relationship with; the good, the bad and the unsightly to my human eyes. I know there is so much more to be done in all this and that really excites me where before I would shrink back with doubt in my ability to go through the refiners fire, to play my part.
Back to winter: my work involved looking after people who are physically and developmentally broken and have been their entire lives. How do you believe in a good, healing, compassionate God when you are around those who were never given a chance to be all that their inheritance as sons and daughters promised. But through their limitation I was able; when scales had been removed from my eyes to see the beautiful creation within the broken shell. Yes they needed others to help them with the most basic tasks. Other people had to give in a never-ending way in order that they may receive the necessary to live. As they receive food is it possible that it is for their sprits as well as their bodies. Is it further possible that without using unhelpful and even hurtful (if you’ve ever been burnt out you know what I mean) clichés that those who give really do receive. They get to take part in some of the most holy, sacred moments. Doing to “the least” as they would do to Him who my heart loves.
Anyway back to winter and spring. I recently after much prayer, thought and soul searching decided to take another job as a support worker working one on one with a great guy with mental health issues. It’s a role that suits my personality and believes much better. It is by no-means stress free but I connect with the deepest part of me as I carry out my work in a way that is refreshing to my soul even as I am emptied of the love and energy that I carry within. I have also met someone else who brings me great joy and together we are building a relationship founded on and infused with love that has the potential to become the most beautiful of things. The kind of thing that if it were a physical object would be the most beautiful piece of art. And I don’t mean a static painting but more a moving, living sculpture. Even a living breathing creation with it’s own life. This spring of the soul came about months after I reached my lowest and darkest part of winter. Months! between almost overwhelming despair and a definite overwhelming joy. This journey took place almost in tandem with the seasons unfolding about me in beautiful Wales. I came through I believe because I never gave up on the idea that love wins. Love in the end always wins. God is love and I cast myself upon Him as much as I was able and some more. I know I have not arrived but that I am continually on a journey treading many terrains. There are Mountains, gently rolling hills, flat plains from horizon to horizon to horizon. Sometimes there is great forests of greenery and at others a sandy waste but I always have the choice no matter how slowly to keep moving forward towards Him. There will be times of joy and times of despair. There will be crushingly beautiful moments and gut wrenching death moments. But I know that there is one who has overcome death and that love always wins in the end.
Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/74
June 22 2009