Winter Into Spring

April 2009

by Sally Klein O'Connor

As I begin writing it is the last hard blowing March, in all its Winter fury. Even though Spring has officially laid claim, by virtue of the calendar, March is still exercising Winter’s authority in some of the more northern regions in our country. Brown and gray are the houses hurrying by my window as I travel by bus through the Great Lake States. Clouded over are skies with bits of blue, promising a warmer future. And the trees that stand in crowded forests alongside the highway, are gray, black, brown, and white sticks. Some are more narrow in their space, some are strong and broad, but all stand with arms upraised to the heavens—waiting.

Spring will come, even to these more wintry regions that we travel through now. Spring will come and clothe them in the colors of life. Even now the buds begin to bump along branches, promising green leaves and flowers. Some will fruit and some will blossom with a scent that wakens the earth once again to the goodness of God.

Winter is always a hard and lonely season, a time of testing and trusting, a time of stripping. With these trees the wind carries away all their leaves in the Fall, and they stand naked in the cold and frost here.

Sometimes it feels that way in my life also. Winter comes—in one form or another—and all my protection from the assault of cold and wind has been taken from me. I stand like those sticks in the ground—feeling unclothed and entirely vulnerable—utterly humbled before God. Unlike the trees, however, my hands are not often upraised during those seasons, yet somehow I stand. By the grace of God, I stand.

And then Spring comes to the trees as He comes to me. I am robed and clothed in colors and a glory that is not my own. The wonder of His beauty and majesty washes over me all over again as it did when I first believed. Once more, I am in awe of a God full of majesty and power, who is so deeply in love with His creation—that He willingly went through the deepest winter of all so that Spring would never be denied anyone who longs for it.

I am reminded in this last breath of Winter, that it is humility who dresses my heart, who leads me into the cold and back out into the Spring. Humility in my weakness, complete trust and utter dependence on the leading of God, is what will keep me through the Winters and bring me back into the Spring.

As a girl, I remember feeling so small on the hill above our house. As the old year melted into the new, the grass and weeds would grow tall and green. I would climb up midway, find a spot and settle down deep into the grass, so as to feel almost invisible to the outside world. Then I would look up at the bigness of the sky and catch my breath at how unmistakably blue it was—as if that color could ever fade or grow any less intense than it appeard that moment of my childhood. And when I had lingered on how deep and vast that blue was, I began to wonder what was behind it? And I ached. There was sweetness to it; not cloying—compelling. It was a yearning for something or someone I did not know. There was also pain, because whatever I was longing for could not be found. I did not know where to look. I only knew the ache.

When I could drive I would go down to the beach during the winter and walk the pier, past the old fishermen with their buckets and bags, then down the stairs to shuffle my feet through the sand. I’d look out over the waves and foam and expanse to the line where the water touched the sky. The ache would well up in me, like soft, bittersweet fountain in my soul, and I would want what I could not name.

And then, for a long time, I forgot how to be small and accessible to the ache that was both sweet and painful. And I forgot how to wonder. I locked up my heart against Winter. I wanted to stay warm and safe—comfortable. I tried to control my world for a long time, until I began to see how impossible it was. That was when I opened up my heart—just the slightest crack—to Christ. It is this strange journey I am taking back to childhood with Him, in this season of my life, finding out how to long for and wonder again at the bigness of my God. I am learning how to be small again, even while living in a world that is often large and dangerous.

Christ’s complete reliance on the Father and His absolute trust allowed Him to humble Himself enough to be born into His creation, and die the death required of Him. He, like the trees, in the fullness of time, let the Father strip and crush Him, and take all that was His. Jesus descended from heaven without a trace of His glory—a babe—entirely dependent on that which He created, to nurture and provide for Him. And at the end, He, through whom every living thing was made, was crucified by the very ones for whom He laid His life down. This, so that the Father might provide through His Son the only sacrifice that would save His creation from the bondage of sin and death. In the moment of His greatest vulnerability Jesus cried out to His Father, forsaken, so we might never be. And even then, bereft of the intimacy with the Father He had always known, He still chose to trust His Father.

Perhaps our stripping comes because there is yet a greater glory to be revealed—as with Christ—so also with us. As we become less he becomes more. As the things of this world are taken from us, He and His Kingdom come into sharper focus, and we are reminded yet again, God is our source—for all things!

For in Him, we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)

Many of us are going through a winter right now and all our machinations and manipulations won’t bring Spring any faster. Like the trees, unadorned and naked, standing like sticks in the still cold earth, we need to raise our hearts and hands to God—and stand. In due season God will clothe us again. He will cover our nakedness with His glory. The buds will blossom and the promises will be fulfilled, and the rich sweet aroma of Christ will scent the very air around us, as we are found faithful.

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