Sometimes seasons run long.  Even in so-called easy winters, darkness abounds.  Late winter snowstorms and early nights where the stars aren’t visible.  Never ending cloud cover and dead places where we dwell for longer than one could imagine.

In darkness.  In death.  In depression.

The times where we feel God has forgotten.  Turned His face.  When we come home from the hospital without a baby to warm our arms and hearts.  When paychecks don’t come.  When our loved ones suffer.  When we go home day after day to broken homes, terminal diseases, loveless marriages, to discord and hurt.  The times where it feels like the world, the enemy, has won, and the case is closed and the door is shut.

Spring is coming.

Jesus’ victory doesn’t come when we expect it to.  Not how we want it to.  Not when we want it to.

In the 11th chapter of John, His victory shows up after Lazarus’ illness has set in, and supposedly won.  Mary and Martha have dealt with the sickness, the sleepless nights loved ones endure when their heart is suffering, the struggle with doctors.  They’ve walked through all the emptiness and ache, all the grief that comes with death, and the following burial.  Hope had lost.  Both Martha and Mary are accusatory and hurt, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:32 NIV)

Somehow death isn’t the end.

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”  (John 11:25 ESV)  Somehow our end is our beginning.  And despite seasons of death, of hurt and pain and anguish, somehow we will live again.

Whether we’re accepting or angry, bargaining or accusatory.  God meets us in our desperate need for Him.  And he breathes hope over our most hopeless situations.

Spring is coming.  Life is coming.  Resurrection is coming.

Sometimes, small at first, like the smallest buds on the honeysuckle bushes, or the first brave push of the daffodil through the dirt, when the snow hasn’t even melted away.

God is not done working.  He is never done working.  Even when it feels like the world, the enemy, has won, and the case is closed and the door is shut.  Keep pleading.  Keep trusting.

In resurrection season, miracles run deep and hope flows heavy through Him who can do all things.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13 NIV)

Blessings.