Spring around the corner?

Winter isn't quite over. It's been long, and cold, and cloudy. Ironically, I've noticed during the last few weeks that the deadest time of year is the end of winter. Everything that had half a mind to die is long dead. The snow (at least hear in the "south") is gone. With the greenest part of the year just around the corner, things are looking their dreariest. But I take enormous comfort in knowing that spring will be hear soon, if not on March 20, at least looking like spring by April - with daffodils, tulips, green grass, and leaves.

Why can't life be a bit more predictable like that? Sometimes, things seem like they can't get any worse. And then they keep getting worse. Usually, I have enough of my optimist father in me to hope and pray and look forward to deadness bursting into life. Spring must be right around the corner, it can't get any worse, right????

Sometimes it is OK, with the barren times finally giving way to great stuff - like winter to spring.

But sometimes people die. Jobs are lost. Hopes and dreams are squashed. Injustice prevails. Life doesn't go in nice 3 month season cycles. Argh.

Sometimes things don't work out. And strangely, that's a big reason why I keep pursuing a God who alone has the power to set things right in the final "end". Knowing that He's big, just yet merciful, and keeping an eye on us keeps hope alive in me.

Out of the leaves yet un-raked from fall, little daffodil leaves are popping up in my front yard.

I'm comforted by those little signs of life - my inspiration to keep hoping and praying for some day when winter gives way to spring once and for all.