Seasons Of The LordMuestra

If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?

“The time of the singing of birds is come.” —Song of Solomon 2:12

Springtime has been a favorite theme of poets from Solomon down through the ages. There is the great poem by Robert Browning titled “The Year’s at the Spring.” With all nature awakening into new life,

"God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world!"

In The Temple, George Herbert wrote of “sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses.” Edmund Spenser agreed with Solomon’s description of such a season:

"Fresh Spring, the herald of love’s mighty king,

In whose coat-armour richly are display’d

All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring,

In goodly colours gloriously array’d."

Flowers appear and birds sing to welcome spring. The cuckoo is the foremost herald. Wordsworth wrote of the cuckoo, saying, “Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!” Spenser also referred to it as “the merry cuckoo, messenger of Spring.”

All of us welcome the passing of the gloom of winter and the coming season of resurrection. Yet without the winter hardening and consolidating the resources of trees and plants, spring would very soon sap them of all their energy. The circle is complete not only in God’s year but in our spiritual experience. Everything is beautiful in its season. We cannot have spring without winter, or summer without spring, or autumn without summer. God does not permit us to live in a perennial spring or an unceasing summer. “Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God” (Psalm 55:19). Spring is the season that awakens hope, revives deadened sensibilities, and gives us a new sense of life. Has yours been a hard, spiritual winter because of a crushing sorrow or some chilling doubt? The Creator of the seasons of the year is at hand to bring a new springtime in your soul and the promise of a summer of rich fruitfulness.