Article for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

I peeked through my office window and saw the tiny pink buds hesitantly starting to bloom. The bright color contrasted the brown landscape across my front yard. A smile crossed my face as I grabbed the camera to capture the hopeful yet minor signs of spring in early March. My heart rejoiced with the promise of cheerful colors and singing birds after a gloomy winter.

Spring is my favorite time of the year. I love the fall, with its magnificent, colorful forests and crisp cool air after the scorching summer months, but something about spring makes my heart sing for joy. After a long, dreadful winter, when nature dies and rests in complacent abandon, the first blooms remind me that there’s an end for every sorrow, just as there’s hope in every trial.

I find it necessary to create visual reminders of God’s grace in our lives, and nature is truly full of them. Meditating upon certain metaphors inspired by the seasons can become a way to anchor our hearts in truths often shadowed by our troubles.

Depression is sometimes referred to as the “winter of the soul,” and rightfully so. As we go through the terrible “winters” of sorrow brought about by the death of a loved one, unemployment, loneliness or lingering sickness, it is difficult to focus beyond our circumstances. Therefore, deep sadness, or even depression, can easily set in.

The end of winter, followed by the blooming of dogwood trees and flowers in early spring, has become an anchoring reminder to keep my focus in check each time I go through a shadowy valley. “No pain lasts forever,” the blooms remind me. Indeed, spring reminds me that just as nature is not dead during winter, God is also at work in the “winters of the soul,” preparing, caring for us, birthing new joys when we think that all hope is gone.

I can’t compare other people’s sufferings with mine, but I’ve certainly had my share of troubles. I’ve gone through many health problems, including cancer. We lost a loved one in a tragic accident. I experienced deep emptiness and loneliness following my separation from family and friends when I moved to America over two decades ago. We lost a lot of money in a business venture and faced unemployment twice in the years we’ve been married.

Life has certainly not always been a bed of roses without thorns. But as I look past each trouble I’ve faced, this fact stands out, more significant than anything I’ve ever endured: “Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” This truth, extracted from one of King David’s psalms, has been repeatedly tested and proven in my life. God has always provided me with the grace needed to pass each test — if only I would choose to look up to him instead of fixing my eyes on my difficult, however fleeting circumstances.

As I watch the tree in my front yard blooming this early spring, I am again reminded of God’s faithfulness through the difficult seasons of my life. I am reminded that every winter of the soul has a purpose and that it also has an end.

It is through suffering that our character becomes stronger, and it is through watching God’s enduring presence in the most challenging days that our faith has the opportunity to grow.

Above all, the end of a long winter reminds me to trust that the sorrows of each long trial are but a shadow compared to the beauty and strength that God will bring forth in our character as we anchor our hearts in His promises and as we trust that spring will certainly come, even in our darkest and coldest days.

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This article was originally published in Patricia’s column for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 25, 2022. Click HERE to find it on the AJC’s website.

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