I am blinking and shielding my eyes as I look toward another hot and humid Florida summer, and I am thinking about winter.
One of my favorite poets, Louise Gluck, invokes winter in “Snowdrops”: “You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you,” she writes.
I lived in Chicago for ten years, and winter has meaning for me. But I also know what despair is, so I think I would understand winter even if I had never felt the icy wind that blows off Lake Michigan.
Toward the end of a long winter, it is possible, even easy, to stop believing in spring. It is possible to doubt that you will ever again feel warm sunshine on your bare arm.
This kind of doubt seems ridiculous. Haven’t I witnessed the earth turning year after year for decades? Don’t I know that spring always returns?
I know this, that spring always comes, and I know something else: it is better after waiting. Waiting out a long winter, whether literal or metaphorical, is incredibly, sometimes unbelievably, difficult. Even when I hold tight to my belief in spring’s return, I can tip over into despair, like a teeter-totter shifting between faith and fear.
Having walked through a decade of winters, winters that were often seasons of my soul as much as seasons on the calendar, I know that the sunshine and warm air feel better, richer, more precious after waiting. Even now, knowing what I know, I can still waste too much effort wishing away the waiting, trying to speed up time.
Today, looking toward several months of heat and humidity (though the near-constant coastal breezes do offer some relief), I want to wish it away, as if I could push some sort of cosmic fast-forward button. It’s the weather, yes, (I may have grown up in Texas, but I have never been a hot-weather person), but it’s also a whole season of waiting.
Here, in Florida, we are in-between. Our careers and the long miles between us and family suggest that we will not stay here long, but we don’t know where we’ll go next or when that might happen. We are waiting, yet trying to find within the temporary some sense of at-home-ness. At times, I despair. I begin to believe that I’ll always be frozen in this place, with this weather.
“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!”
– Isaiah 30:18
As we prepare to move to Florida, the weather is the one single thing that I dread. It leaves me asking, when will we finally get to live-to-stay in a place with seasons, a place without humidity, a place we love and want to sink our roots deep? I’m excited about the beach, our new house (where I can paint the walls and dig in a garden again!), living closer to family (including you!) and yet, my heart sinks at the thought of that heat. Sunday in church I heard this:
“the Lord will guide you always, he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose water’s never fail.” Isaiah 58:11
I realized the Lord was speaking to me about my grumbling attitude, and the way I let that ugliness creep into other places in my heart. He is sending us there for a very specific purpose. He didn’t miss the memo that Kelli hates humidity. I am praying now that during our temporary season in the Florida sun, we can lean on Him to thrive like that well-watered garden, like a spring.
Beautiful! I am writing out this verse and taping it to my mirror.
haha, and here I am complaining about the cold…
Reading “Waiting” I experienced once more the “weighted down” feelings I had during the decade of the 1970’s, the decade of my 30’s. Married 11 years we were in our 5th new home (moving from the desert to semi-tropical).I felt like I was in a terrarium. The kids were 9, 7, & 3. We were there 8 years and I never felt “settled”. Now, as I look back I can see what was happening. I was not able to live the days- it was like I was always on hold. It breaks my heart when I think back to the days, weeks, years that I missed. Those 8 years were the beginning of my life-long battle with chronic depression. Unfortunately, this continued another 8 years with another move in 1980. Sixteen years of my life & I never found out what I was “waiting” for. I know you, girl, I know you.
Aunt Glynda B.