“Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, Sun, moon and stars in their courses above, Join with all nature in manifold witness, To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love”
It’s spring in the northern hemisphere, and spring can be a difficult season for many. While we tend to think of winter as a difficult season with people struggling with seasonal affective disorder and a myriad of holidays, many people suffer with spring. The signs of new life it brings – trees budding, birds singing, grass greening – can be troubling to those not experiencing personal signs of new life.
While skeptics may say the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, I say each day gives us the opportunity to choose whether we are just surviving another day or whether we are truly living. Skeptics may say each day we are just another day closer to death. While this may technically be true, why not each day choose to live? Why not choose life?
John 3 talks about being born again from the Spirit. Every day is an opportunity to start afresh. Afresh with a new attitude. Afresh with new friends. Afresh with new or repaired relationships. This is what I refer to when I refer to choosing LIFE. Choose active, not passive, participation in your own life!
Life is going to happen to all of us. We can make all the best decisions, and the sour spots of life will still happen. We will lose loved ones. We’ll have health issues, employment issues, financial issues, soul issues. We can choose passivity, negativity, victimization, or any number of other unhealthy responses, or we can choose life-affirming responses. We should grieve. We should wail. We should shed tears. We should complain. We should ask why. Do we think the Holy is not big enough to handle these responses?
Then we should get up and LIVE. We may not choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond.
Every day is a chance for NEW LIFE. My body feels older. I look older. The calendar says I am older. I can choose a new way today, however. I can throw away what I did yesterday that did not work. There is a new lesson for me. There is a new friendship to be made. There’s a new book to read. There is a new prayer to pray for a friend.
Spring is not just for cleaning our houses; it’s also for cleaning other areas of our lives. Still hanging onto that “friend” who does nothing but drag you down and only calls when he/she needs something? Stuck in a rut and can’t figure out how to get out of it? Try something simple like this: if you always brush your teeth before showering, brush them after. If you always put on both socks, then both shoes, but on one sock, then one shoe, then the other sock, then the other shoe. Spring is the time for NEW LIFE, and that does not just mean birds in the nest!
How about you – what are your suggestions for bringing some NEW LIFE into your spring?
This post is part of this month’s Synchroblog on “New Life.” Please be sure to check out these other writers:
Michael Donahoe – New Life
K.W. Leslie – Sin Kills; God Brings New Life
Carol Kuniholm – New Life. Mystery Fruit.
Jeremy Myers – I Get Depressed On Facebook
Glenn Hager – A Personal Resurrection Story
Loveday Anyim – Spring Forth – Ideas That Speak New Life
Loveday Anyim – Inspired By Spring To Create A New Life
Sarah Quezada – Post Winter Delight
Edwin Aldrich – Finding New Life In Our New Home
kathy escobar – new life through nonviolent communication
Anita Coleman New Life, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Eternal Living
Sonja Andrews Persephone
Mallory Pickering New Life Masterpiece Theater Style
Religious Refuse 
Doreen – Yes! Life is largely what we make it!