‘See! The winter is past;
    the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
    the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
    is heard in our land.’

Song of Songs 2:11-12

Spring is here! Yes there is still a chill in the air but the season arrives this week and I am ready for the garden work to begin! 

This past Sunday we heard a lot about forgiveness. Forgiveness is something that is full of seasons for me. I love the idea of an internal forgiveness button that I could just click , forgive and move on. Unfortunately I do not have one of those. In my experience forgiveness, at times, is an intense internal struggle like a full year of seasonal change. The heat of the summer (anger), the death of the fall (sadness), the emptiness of winter (release) and the new life of spring (peace). I can go through my seasons of forgiveness several times for the same thing. Some things are just harder to release than others. My head often steps in during these seasons of forgiveness and reminds me of the hurt or sadness or disappointment that I felt - then the summer starts all over again! It is not uncommon for me to cycle through those seasons of forgiveness multiple times over the same event. 

Thankfully, there is no right answer for how long it takes to process forgiveness and no right time frame for how long it takes or how many attempts forgiveness requires. Jesus does not give us a bunch of requirements on how to forgive, we are only told to continue to forgive indefinitely. When Jesus says to forgive as many times as needed I think he is not just talking about forgiving a bunch of different things and different people, but also forgiving the same thing as many times as you need to give yourself peace.  I am guessing some of us have things that we will be working on forgiving for a long time. I know I do. Jesus doesn't promise that forgiveness is easy or quick either. 

Spring brings such joy with its promise and fulfillment of new life. As we move into Spring and Holy Week, I pray that we all find the paths to peace as we work on forgiving the hurts in our lives in this new season.   

The Bible has several inspiring verses about the seasons of change. A few of my other favorite are:

Isaiah 61:11, Genesis 8:22, Daniel 2:21

Happy Spring!