.Anticipating.

Spring.

For the first time in literally years I am truly anticipating spring!

Last week the weather was beautiful here. One day, and now I have lost track of which day, was actually 70 degrees! I enjoyed the warmer days with my children outside. We played with sidewalk chalk, walked our neighborhood streets - chatting with neighbors and waving to elderly couples sitting on their porches. We kicked around balls. We ran in our small back yard. I dug in my flower bed, and finally got it cleared out from last summer. My children got gloriously dirty and muddy and tired. We drank fresh fruit smoothies. My children took naps with the scent of sunshine in their hair. I dreamed of my first vegetable garden and made plans while they slept. We even had our first {indoor} barbecue with our best friends. I anticipate this will be the first of many we will share as the weather turns warmer.

As our home was quiet inside, I realized how very much I was actually anticipating spring.


I usually am the one hoping for one last snow storm, even through March and April. I am realizing now, that it actually had little to do with the snow, but rather was the fact that the snow kept us together in our home longer. I hesitated to write this at all, as I do not want to be misunderstood.

This time of year is usually very hard for me. I traditionally am very melancholy feeling on the inside, but try to make up for it by being overly enthusiastic about what is to come. About now I would start making lists of everything we would have to pack for an entire summer plus (May through the end of August, sometimes the beginning of September). I hated making those lists. I hated packing. I hated moving away for the whole summer, and missing out on everything here. Please don't think that I hated camp. That is not true. But there were parts of the ministry (like any ministry I am sure) that were very tough. The packing and moving was one of them. So I dreaded the spring. I dreaded the end of the winter. I dreaded knowing that our family unit would once again be pushed to its limits. I dreaded the lack of privacy, the lack of my own food, my own things, and at the same time I was anticipating so many things. It was always a tug-of-war, a wrestling and a determination to be excited and put on an excited face for what was to come.

And though, I know in the next few months, I am going to go through terrible campsickness, and that I will miss camp, and the people, and the fun. Right now, I am truly enjoying anticipating spring.

For behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree ripens its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away.

Song of Solomon 2:11-13