It’s that time of year again: spring. I love to see beautiful yards and to work in the garden. I’m not too much of a seed person, though; I love perennials, and I’d rather purchase my annuals already in bloom (requiring very little effort on my part to transform into lovely, full blooms). Looking at the yard this year, I noticed a few bald spots in the grass and decided to remedy that by scattering a few grass seeds, watering, and voila! I’d have a lovely yard! Well, what I didn’t take into consideration was the preparation, time, energy, effort, and money (buying seed, dirt, and a rake, and thatching and planting). Nor did I know that the best time to destroy weeds is during the last few weeks of winter. But eventually, with all that accomplished, I still didn’t have grass; instead, I had spots with un-germinated seeds.
Now I have to wait and quiet my anxiety, doubt, and fear. Equipped with hope (expectation, trust, optimism, anticipation, faith, desire, wish, looking forward to), I believe that it will be filled in soon. Based on what? Based on the seed company’s history—related by satisfied customers—of proven results, letting me know that I’ve purchased a good product that yields great returns.
I believe that our lives revolve and evolve in seasons. Seasons faithfully change, as naturally as the sun rising and setting. Determining what season we’re in may not be as difficult as we think. If we think of the natural characteristics of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, we can pretty much pinpoint the “season” of our life. Have you ever felt like you’ve been in a place before, but this time there’s something different about it? There’s a sense that it’s the same, yet not the same; that you can evolve out of it and when you meet it again, it won’t be the same, because you’ve dealt with whatever manifested in a way that you can make it over or go through.
What season are you in? What preparation(s) should you be making now to make the next season overcoming and profitable? One clue is always taking hope into the season, or finding it while in that season. Remember the poem by Alexander Pope, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest: The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.” It means people always hope, even in the face of adversity; people keep on hoping, no matter what the odds.
While my daughter was growing up, I would say to her (during her woeful times of feeling inadequate), “If someone else did it, so can you; what makes you different from them?” The difference is hope and attitude. In William Paul Young’s book, “Crossroads,” the principal character, Tony, makes a profound statement that “Perception is reality, even if the perception is a lie.”
Maintaining hope is difficult during the planting and prepping days of spring; the cold, icy, barren days of winter; the humid, hot, sweltering days of summer; and the laid-back, dogwood days of autumn. There are several things that may cause hope to be weak, ineffective, or nonexistent:
1) Ignorance – lack of knowledge of the situation or circumstance.
2) Unbelief – lack of trust and confidence in yourself and your ability and in something or someone greater than you.
3) Fear – of life, of the outcome, of failure.
There’s a rhythm to life in any season and every season can be a fresh, vibrant, new season to plant hope if we find the bare spots and make the necessary repairs. Let hope spring eternal. After all, if someone else made it, so can you.
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