This winter seemed very long. The days were so very short and every year my body seems to crave the sunshine more and more. I was sluggish and lazy, I just wasn't able to get myself motivated to work when my house was so dark. The windows in our house face East and West (we have none facing North or South!) so we usually have amazing sunlight streaming into the kitchen and living room in the mornings, and the hot evening sun heats up our playroom in the evenings. In the winter, it's overcast and dreary. And my soul just feels uninspired.
It rained a lot too, at least it seemed that way. Maybe because it's those rainy days when you crave the sun the most, and they just seem to slap you in the face with cold rain... and those are the nasty days you remember. Everyone is cooped up inside the house, anxious to get out. Everyone's a little sad and I know, just
know, it's because these children were meant to be outside.
We did have some unusually warm days, and they were extra-glorious because the beauty
is just so beautiful after being surrounded by the ugly. We always took the chance to go to the park or just even play outside all day long, calling a "good weather day" off from school because when you homeschool, you get to do that!
As February ended and we had a break in the rain, I knew I had to get my plants in the ground while I had the chance. We grabbed jackets and drove to the nursery to pick up some plants and seeds, and even though it was misty outside my heart was joyous to walk through that beautiful nursery surrounded by the lush greens and spring color that my yard lacked. We picked some tomatoes, peppers, basil, lavender, and some seed packets of carrots, lettuces, radishes, and summer flowers, and came home.
We had lots of weeds to pull because those suckers start growing before anything else will, and I wanted to reposition a garden bed. We tossed grubworms in a bucket, let earthworms wriggle in our hands before returning them to the soil, and pulled weeds to make space for our our flowers. We even found a tiny hibernating snake! We kicked over and stomped crawfish chimneys, because we really hate those things and they make the yard look ten times worse than any weed ever could.
It's this time of year that I always feel like Mary Lennox from
The Secret Garden, pulling back the overgrown to find a bit of beauty in a bit of earth. Find something pretty fills me with hope; joy is coming.
It's always so appropriate to me that it's this time of year, when I crave green and beauty the most, that we enter into Lent. Jesus was in a desert but I feel stuck in my own desert of sorts, searching for something to give me hope. And then finally Easter comes, the joy of the resurrection, and all of the sudden the earth rejoices and bursts into bloom! Everything wakes from their winterly sleep; the azaleas and lillies burst into bloom, buds linger on my rose bushes, orange and lime citrus flowers that smell of heaven, and tiny lettuces, all seem to shout with joy to the risen Christ!
That's what I feel like I miss the most during a dreary winter. Hope. Tiny blossoms, life buzzing around me. I miss my hummingbirds. I
know that the spring will eventually come, but these long nights that drag one and on beat me up. I love the way Lent is always timed with the end of winter in Texas.
So we worked the earth a bit, pressed some seeds into the ground, and I moaned that my back hurt from leaning over so much. I gave my gloves to the kids because I didn't mind dirt under my fingernails. It was worth it, just to be outside and feel the hope that I was creating something that would hide during Lent and bloom and blossom as the Spring came.
My helpers were happy to be outside again, and anxious to see what would happen. They're always eager to please and very hard workers, I think they are going to be excellent homesteaders one day!
Now that it's April and I can look out the window and see the green grass, small green blackberries growing larger each day, my Samuel's rose bush in full bloom and my Mother's Day yellow rose bush about to bloom, and a garden bed full of green tops of vegetables, my soul rejoices because I know that it is through Him that we will reap what we've sown. It really feels to me like these plants are growing for Him, their Creator, and that it's my job to rid the beds of the weeds and make sure they're tenderly watered and cared for. Day by day, we watch them grow... Then one day soon, we will enjoy a feast, a beautiful salad of mixed greens and veggies, with a lemon basil chicken homegrown by us. And I pray that in the same manner, we raise our children: eliminating the weeds that pull the life out of them, provide tender care and shelter from the unpredictable world, so that one day we can all enjoy the Heavenly feast together with our Lord, to whom we've been growing and reaching for our whole lives.
(All but one of these photos were taken by Beth!)
