GESTATION

I really, really tried not to rush through the gestational period of winter, after all I can’t control winter, nor do I want to. In reality, with the exception of a white Christmas coupled with frigid temperatures, it hasn’t been a bad winter. But as I sat pondering my February day where the temperature is supposed to reach eighty degrees, I was almost giddy. I stopped just short of euphoria, realizing that eighty degrees in February in Tennessee is the perfect atmosphere for tornadoes, thunderstorms and straight-line winds. Eighty degrees was too early.

Everything has a season. Nature and the planet we inhibit are filled with wisdom from which I can learn. The dormancy and short cold days and longer nights of winter are as necessary for my growth as they are for the tulips pushing through the dirt and trees budding.

Unlike me, neither the tulip nor the oak becomes impatient with winter. Neither utters as I have in the last few weeks, “I am soooo ready for spring.” I wonder if they would if they could talk. They understand, as should I after my many times around the sun, that winter is as important for their fruitful future as the showers of spring. I would do well to lean into my own seasons and extract from them like the cactus extracts what it needs to grow and thrive in the dry barren desert.

As I was having these thoughts, my eyes were drawn to the leafless yet blooming bush in one neighbor’s yard and leafless yet blooming forsythia in another. Neither was in bloom last week.

Out of dormancy comes something beautiful. Had I in my haste to reach another season, missed – failed to recognize – what is blooming in me right now? My response, “Yes.”

My pain in the buttocks season that you read about last week is proof. Out of the pain, my physical flexibility has improved as has my upper body strength and posture. Because of a slower cadence and pace, I have been more cognizant of the needs of others and responded to their needs more appropriately. I ask more frequently, “How can I serve you.?” I am a better listener.

I am more centered and disciplined toward two of my life goals – awareness and presence. So here is a note that I am addressing to self. “Stop complaining about your season whatever it is.” My future is being prepared in the present.

Like the tulip bulbs that have lain in the dark damp soil of winter, the dreams and desires that are inside me will burst forth in due course. You just wait and see. I am going to bloom. What about you?

Song of Solomon 2:11-13

PONDER THIS THOUGHT----That which lays fallow in me will sprout in its season.