Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. — Isaiah 43:19
I’ve noticed the beavers at work along the river these past few mornings.
It seems that spring came in the northern hemisphere last week. A good thing. It’s been a long and malingering winter.
Some winters are like that.
Winter, for many, means hardship. Storms and brutal cold; grey skies, short days and long, dark nights; shoveling snow, icy roads and heating bills that seem to never end.
Things tend to lay dormant in the winter. Many in the animal kingdom hide out and hibernate.
In the people kingdom too.
Then the spring comes. New life, new energy, new hope. A reprieve; a new beginning.
And so it is in all our lives.
What we do in the springtime of our lives matters. How we till the soil; what we plant; where we plant it; how much we care.
What we build; how we build it.
The summer will surely come. And then the harvest time. It always does.
That harvest, what we reap, will depend on these very moments in our lives: What we sow in the here and now will dictate the seasons yet to come.
- In our businesses and careers;
- In our networks and relationships;
- In our marriages and partnerships and families;
- In our health and fitness;
- In our financial lives;
- In the service of others.
It’s easy to be complacent in the spring, what with the weight of winter finally lifted off. But spring is a time for focus; the time to re-charge, to re-double our efforts. The seeds that we plant, the investments that we make, the care and the attention that we bring to the spring in our lives will yield a thousand fold in the soft glow of our autumn time.
Of course, the seasons of our lives don’t always correspond with Mother Nature. I surely have experienced some desperate winters in the midst of spring; and brutal heat that killed the seeds long after harvest time had come.
But the spring of the year is a good time to remind ourselves of the never-ending rhythm of things; that even in the darkest of nights, the light will return. And that when it does, we have an opportunity to begin again; to create anew; to make our lives the masterpieces they’ve always been meant to be.
Jim Rohn said, “You cannot change the seasons; but you can change yourself.”
In every moment – in every spring – we get to choose.
Wherever you are, whatever the season for you, let’s begin again.
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This is an encore of a post first published on March 28, 2014.
Beautifully-written and perfectly-timed article, Walt. “Even in the darkest of nights, the light will return.” Great reminder that we can always choose a new start, and the new season is a perfect opportunity for that.