Necessary winters

It’s inevitable that winter will come for all of us.

Of course, there’s the season, which depending on your location, can be tough or more of the same (if you live in a place with perpetual summer). Around here, as I’ve said a 1,000 times, it’s a hard one…lots of dark and lots of wet…kind of a drenched  & cold blanket dropped over you (me, anyway).

But what about a figurative winter that just sort of creeps into our lives? What’s been referred to as “a dark night of the soul”, which I think is a great way to explain it. It can saunter in slowly over time or hit you like a Mack truck of circumstance. What if this dark time isn’t definable by a rotation of a three month period and tangible signs of it coming to an end, like pink trees and sun breaks?

Oh, friends…it seems I’ve been running into people lately that are either coming out of a “long winter” or are smack dab in the middle of it.

I do know this for sure about a dark winter:

It grows us.

It stretches our standards.

It allows downtime for thought about changes.

It isn’t permanent.

It can prompt motivation to strive harder for what makes us joyul.

It is always followed by spring.

Beautiful, light-filled, colorful spring. I’m finally beginning to realize that the winters are necessary.

It’s God’s way of providing reflection time for us crazy, busy humans. He wants us to sit and rest in the things that bring us sorrow and apathy, simply because it will set forth in our hearts a willingness to make a change and rely on Him. The door is opened…sometimes even wider than before the winter, and the world is seen with clearer vision…the trees are greener…the flowers more vibrant.

It’s happened to me in the past year. January of 2011 was my hardest winter to date….but now I’m realizing how necessary it was for being where I am now….right where I need to be. So thankful for the necessary winter and the spring that has followed.

A human life has seasons much as the earth has seasons, each time with its own particular beauty and power.  And gift.  By focusing on springtime and summer, we have turned the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation.  Life is neither linear nor stagnant.  It is movement from mystery to mystery.  Just as a year includes autumn and winter, life includes death, not as an opposite but as an integral part of the way life is made.       -Rachel Naomi Remen

It is like Albert Camus said…inside all of us lives an invincible summer.

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I’m currently obsessed with the concept of winds blowing in my portraits…kind of goes along with these thoughts about winter. I’ve seen some incredibly brave women stand in the center of their personal storm, holding on for dear life, but their heads held high letting it blow violently in their direction…sometimes even with smiles on their faces.

“I’m still standing,” their body language seems to say.

I’m so proud to know these women and root for their victories…never underestimate the power of a women holding on in the wind.

Hoping your spring days are filled with growth and beauty, lovelies…

OX.