Spring

Hannah and I have spent a lot of time these last 5 weeks in a rocking chair my parents purchased before I was born. It’s a classic wooden chair with simple cushions that offer the type of comfort which only comes from decades of use. This chair has seen a lot of life and helped countless babies (and, let’s be honest, adults) find rest. Now, this same chair that held my mother as she rocked me to sleep as a baby helps me to soothe Hannah in exactly the same way.

This rocking chair sits in a bay window that frames our wooded acreage like a living painting. Springtime in the woods is like a slow, deep breath; from ground to treetop, the sun wakes energetic growth out of the sleepy winter browns to the soundtrack of cheerful birdsong. This transformation happens on a quiet schedule, one that’s unique to every plant and coordinated with the year’s unique weather patterns. Nature offers an unapologetically unhurried process in its seasonal transitions, one that doesn’t question itself and confidently rests in doing what it was designed to do.

As I rock Hannah and watch this process unfold, I envy the plants, the birds, and the deer. I envy their relationship to time, seasons, and change. As people, we have a tendency to spend so much of our energy either trying to rectify the past or to optimize the future that we often miss what’s right in front of us. We miss the flowers breaking through the ground on a spring day, the first time the birds sing the sun over the horizon at dawn, or the sleepy, gassy smile of a newborn as she naps. There is such a focus on productivity in our days that quiet rest becomes uncomfortable as we feel pressured to ‘make the most of every minute’.

I like to believe we were made for more, or I suppose, in some ways, less. The simplicity of creation leads me to believe that confidently resting in the path set before us can lead to beautiful results; maybe the moment in front of us matters too.

Esther 4:14 says “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Rocking one daughter to sleep as the other tells me about shark races while dressed as a unicorn princess is sacred chaos. Washing the piles of clothes that now include the tiny onesies I thought would never come out of storage is mundane and miraculous. These are the moments I begged God for while kneeling beside Norah’s empty crib. These are the moments I wept for over and over as we were repeatedly met with God’s ‘No’. These moments can be hard, certainly – motherhood and parenting after loss is physically and emotionally demanding. But they’re also holy.

Hannah’s birth marked a new season for our family. Much in the way nature is waking up in the woods, this season for us is one of growth and life. That’s not to say this time will only be painted with sunshine and flowers; as my grandpa used to say, “thunderstorms make the grass grow.”

But I’m opening these windows and letting in the fresh air while we can. I’m trying to slow down and soak in the sweet moments; the quiet perfection and the comically chaotic. My routines are simpler, making space for more of what needs to be there and less of what doesn’t.

I don’t know aobut you, but I’m very ready for spring.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.” - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8