January always feels like a long, hard month. It is cold, the days are short, and the nights are long. As I get older, I understand more what the old-timers mean when they say their bones ache. It has been bone-aching cold this year.
But a recent visit to my flower field gave me something to hope for through the rest of this hard winter! The tulip bulbs are already starting to push the very tips of their green leaves through the frozen ground! While they aren’t even an inch tall yet, the peekaboo of something we buried in the dirt months ago reminds me of God’s promises and of His faithfulness.
The nerd in me needs to go a little deeper, so bear with me here. The time that those bulbs spent buried isn’t wasted, dormant time, like we so often believe. While those bulbs are buried, they are absorbing water and nutrients from the soil, creating a stored energy reserve that gives it strength to burst through the soil with a beautiful flower when the conditions are right. The period of germination is the most important part of the flower’s growth. Without those weeks and months in the cold, dark ground, it could never burst forth in beauty when the time is right.
The analogy for our lives is pretty obvious to me here. None of us enjoy the weeks and months we spend “in the dirt”. When everything seems dark and hopeless, when life isn’t working out the way we want, when unexpected and unpleasant surprises catch us off guard, it gets hard to see the purpose in all of it. For me, obedience to my calling and to Jesus are easy when life is good; but when life gets hard, the dirt in my eyes sometimes blurs my focus on Him.
That’s where we find the connection between us and the flowers of the field. God cares for us more than He cares for his beautiful creation. (Matthew 6: 25-34) He gifts us those flowers, the beautiful sunrise each day, the laughter of our children, and so much more, because He loves us. He loves us too much to leave us buried in the dirt. But just like we, as parents, know that sometimes discipline or hard consequences are what our children need to grow and mature, God cares enough for us that He gives us a season in the dirt to prepare, to grow, to store up nutrients, and to create energy for blooming when our perfect time and season arrive.
What becomes important is how we spend our time “in the dirt”. If you, like me, have been in a hard winter season, then I hope you will make the most of this opportunity. It may not feel like a gift right now, but I promise that your Spring is coming, and what you do now will prepare you for what you can’t yet see. Pray, read your Bible, find time to be with people who speak live and love over you, connect with creation and with Jesus wherever you find Him. Hang on to hope, because while the winter is cold and dark, a beautiful Spring is on the way!
In His Love,
Dr. Allison Key
