13: Spring Has Sprung!

After a longer winter than we've seen in recent years, this week marks the arrival of the vernal equinox and the Spring season!  Flowers start popping up, birds start chirping and the days get a little bit longer.  In this episode we talk about things to focus on in the Spring weather season, what God calls us to in the midst of the Spring and how hopeful it can be if we trust in His plan for this season in our lives - no matter what season you are in!  I also share a recent story from my own life about going through seasons with a grateful heart and trusting that God has it all taken care of - even when it seems like everything is off - that I think you'll enjoy!  

So get outside and enjoy the longer days, sunshine and pollen with a bold step into my favorite weather season.  What's your favorite part of Spring?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Seasons with Purpose, where we have honest conversations about how seasons of all types show up in our lives and how we walk into and through them with intention. I'm so glad you're here. Hello, Pod Squad, and welcome to episode 13. We have made it to spring of 2026. Those of you who've been on this journey with me from the beginning know that spring is my favorite. So I, for one, am thrilled that we finally made it, and I love the warm temperatures and the awakening of all the things, flowers especially. And I am here for it and ready. I pray that each of you had a winter full of rest and time to process and hibernate a bit with your family. I truly have never in my life had a more impactful winter. God bless me with a season of true rest and refocus. And it's been life-giving and exactly what my heart needed on so many levels. It's been an intentional break. I love that everyone's schedules slow down a bit after the holiday and we can all refocus and reset on what we really want to do in the coming seasons. And in our family, we focus on how we can help each other in those seasons to come, saying them out loud as much as we can so that everyone understands what we're looking ahead to. So we're all kind of stepping into that now as we inch closer to spring. And it feels so great. My if you're new here, the podcast is called Seasons with Purpose because my heart for our time together is that you can discern or find discernment in seasons of life because the Bible is clear that God gives us weather and life seasons on purpose, very intentionally. There's a start and a finish to lots of things in how God built this beautiful life we get to live. And I want all of you to be able to take the time to let God do the things in you in each season and not rush it. And sometimes that just means understanding the intention behind every season and how God built it, what to look for, what to expect, what to pray for or think about in the midst of it. So each equinox or transition of seasons, I do an entire episode with some information about the season to come. Some of it might seem obvious, but I urge you to take the time to listen to the parts of spring that God really focuses on and how to apply that to your life this year or even next week or however that takes place in your life. So I want to start with Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1 to 8. Um I'm gonna just read it. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to rend and a time to sew, a time to silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. Basically, there's a time for everything. And in God's plan for you, it's really intentional what that time is, and in a lot of the phases, what you should be learning or looking out for in them, especially in um the weather seasons. So for spring, one of my favorites is Song of Solomon, um, chapter two, I think it's eleven. Let me see. Yeah, 11 and 12. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, oh come away. Basically, it's spring. It's the winter is past. So I love that. So this Friday is the vernal or spring equinox, which marks that start of spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern hemisphere. It occurs when the sun crosses directly over the earth's equator, resulting in nearly equal day and night lengths pretty much everywhere. We're right at the that balance of um 12 and 12 of day and night. In the north, it marks the start of warmer weather in spring, often called the first point of Aries or spring equinox. It's celebrated globally as a time of rebirth, newness, young life. Everyone talks about sprouts that need to be loved, renewal and growth, and it's characterized by rising temperatures, blooming plants, and the awakening of wildlife from their winter slumber or hibernation, which, as I mentioned before, I think people do too, somewhat intentionally, and that's a great thing. It symbolizes just new beginnings and fresh starts. It's when we celebrate Easter and Passover and carnival, and just generally there's more sun in the day, baby animals and blooming flowers. It's delightful and beautiful and hopeful. Spring is often associated with physical activities like gardening and spring cleaning, but also encompasses rejuvenation just of your spirit, where people are reflecting on goals and aspirations and focusing on new intentions. I think sometimes we do that at the new year change, but that's often in the rest of winter. And so spring is a maybe more intentional time to do that. So welcome to spring. The word I often use to describe spring, as I said earlier, is simply hope. It's a time of new beginnings and potential, which is built, I think, on hope. Hope truly is the most powerful motivator. If you continue to have hope, the devil can't truly get to your heart. I heard a sermon from Joyce Meyer maybe a year ago, I don't, I don't know how long ago, that referenced Luke 9. And I read it recently again, and I can't stop thinking about verse 62, the end of the passage and its message about the hope of spring. Let me read it to you. Luke 9, verse 62. And Jesus said unto him, No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. God tells us if you put your hand on the plow in the spring, once the ground is thaw and it's ready for seeds, don't look back. Don't question all the things you did wrong in the winter. Don't wish you had taken the ski vacation or traveled more over Christmas break. Just move forward. Just like in life seasons, God makes intentional breaks in weather seasons where you have to move ahead, like you're forced to. A bear can't stay in a cave once it gets warm. It's too hot in there. He has to come out. Same thing with rabbits. They can't stay burrowed underground because once it thaws, it's too wet and can risk collapse. And at some point, you have to move forward into spring. And I, for lots of reasons, think God built it that way. So I just feel like that verse tells us and reminds us to move forward. It's seed planting season. So think about the harvest. Spring is when you plant the seeds so that there's a harvest in the fall, metaphorically as well. Don't think about how hard it is right now to plant seeds in the ground. Because it is. Plowing isn't easy, right, gardeners and farmers. Planting seeds is not easy and waiting for them to grow also not easy. To apply that to a bigger concept, the season transition is most often where you doubt yourself and your ability to get to the harvest and then you quit. You're sick of waiting for the harvest, so you skip ahead and lose your whole crop in the summer. Every season is a waiting season in some ways. But the spring weather season, I would say more than most, it's beautiful and there's tons of sunshine and longer days, but it's a waiting season once you plant some new seeds, once you start a root new routine with your kids, find a new job, insert a new volunteer role in your community that takes up some time in your schedule that feels hard. Changing doctors or care providers or whatever the thing is that's new and different in the spring can also feel hard, but keep going. Once you put your hand to the plow, don't look back, like like Luke tells us. But when it's hard, in First Corinthians 9, verse, let me find it, verse 10. Listen, no doubt this is written that he that ploweth should plow in hope. And that he that thresheth in hope should be a partaker of his hope. He that plows should plow in hope. And you know what hope is? An expectation that something good is about to happen at any minute. We should live with that kind of expectation. Like I said before, plowing isn't fun, but if it's part of God's plan for you, you can know that it's intentional and have perfect purpose and keep moving forward in the season you're in because you know the waiting is part of the process. God calls us to walk through the waiting with hope and not a bad attitude. Say it out loud to yourself if you need to. This is going to work out for the good. This is happening for a reason. This is going to help me do X, fill in the blank. I'm getting to experience X, fill in the blank, that I wouldn't have gotten to do if I wasn't in this season. Your time of harvest will come. Well, you're in long days of plowing in the coming months in the spring. You can still plow in hope instead of complaining about how hot it is in the fields or how broken your plow is or how not nice and shiny your plow is compared to the other plows in the neighborhood. You know what I'm saying or inferring. I know I'm overdoing this metaphor a bit, but God really put it on my heart this week. And I'm praying it just helps one of you move forward today with hope, especially as you plant new seeds in the spring. That's a beautiful awakening part of spring. And it's intentional and purposeful and a little more hopeful than other times. And I want you to lean into that hope. So I have a relatively recent example of this in my life that I wanted to share. The main lesson for me in it, I think it's been a lesson for a lot of people, but the main lesson for me in it is not complaining in the midst of something that you think is hard or different or feels new, and just waiting on what God's gonna do because we know that God's gonna do something great. So where should I start? My youngest plays travel softball. For those of you who aren't in the travel sports world, or softball in particular, travel softball is now fall, which is August through November, basically, and spring, which is March through July. So there is very little off season in travel softball these days. It's a lot, it's wonderful and such a blessing for my daughter. She loves the competitive environment, and we have followed very intentionally a path that God laid out for her in finding this team that she's on. But in the reality of travel softball world, but there is very little off season. So as a mom, the winter is really the slow time for the softball season, and our schedules slow down a bit. Today's spring episode is brought to you by my friends at Blue Design Company. You can find them at www.blueblesigncompany.com or in their beautiful new location in Perciville at any time. All the details are on their website. Um, and as an exclusive listener of the Seasons with Purpose podcast, you get to use code SEASINGS15 for 15% off at any time, in store, online, for all their amazing, personalized, customized gear. They have the cutest stuff for Easter and summer, all the things, best gift ideas for birthdays at any point. So go check Blue Design Company out and show them some love from my pod squad. Thanks so much. Her team does an agility session once a week and then a practice once a week. And this season, our coach shared with us that the winter practice session would be on Sundays from 8 to 10 a.m. And I was not happy. My immediate reaction was, what are you talking about? This is the one or two months where my family can be intentional about our time at church and going to services. And I love that. I'll be honest. It's something I love and I look forward to and get a lot of joy out of all of us being able to go to church together. Following this awesome path that God gave her in softball, that doesn't happen all season. So I was upset, angry, annoyed. So much so I even text her coach and was like, are you sure there's not another slot? Is there a reason we're doing this? And of course there was. A lot of her team also plays winter basketball. And the basketball games are typically in the afternoon. And so it was better to do our practice on Sunday mornings for most of the amazing families that we get to do softball with and that we share this journey with. And that for sure made sense. But I was reacting in a selfish way. Then I moved along, and luckily our church has three services. So we realized that we could still make the 1030 service as a family, but Andy and my youngest would have to come in their uniform, which she's a seventh-grade girl. The concept of not being able to slick her hair back and look cute in her church outfit was an issue. She didn't like the concept of walking into church sweaty and all the things. But I realized we can still make church and that was going to be our plan. So a few of the families on our team also go to our church. They had already gone to our church. And I literally that morning thought, maybe we should carpool, or maybe I should bring up to them what they're doing, or ask them about their schedule. And I just didn't really say anything. And I regretted that as we were all standing waiting for the girls. So the girls all come out from practice, and my youngest runs up to me and says, Mom, we were talking about going to church, and I invited them to go to church with us. That's okay, right? And she was so in the sweetest, purest way, she was like, So I invited all of them to church, right? And I was like, sure, of course, that's wonderful. And a few of the girls were standing behind her just with this smile on their face, looking at me, waiting for my answer. Sure, of course, let's do it. So I piled some of the girls into my dirty minivan, and off we went to church. And this church van became a thing. And those of you who know me, of course, I made it into a thing. So they would giggle, we packed snacks, um, ready for them. They shared slick back brushes and hair products so they could do their stuff on the way to church. And on the way, these girls who had not been to church before were going for the first time, just asked tons of questions and they answered them. They, how do you pray? I don't have a Bible. Is that okay? Can I use yours? They'd talk about who's sharing what Bibles and they loved it. They started to look forward to it. It became a fun thing, not just for them, but for me too. The joy of just listening to them giggle in the car and all all the middle school drama, but also ask questions about what we believed and what they would learn that day was eye-opening and beautiful. So, fast forward to last week, we had two more weeks of the church van and winter training, and one of these sweet girls made the choice to get baptized. I'm gonna cry. I won't ever be able to tell the story without crying. Yeah, because God makes no mistakes, and all of this was part of his plan, including working on my heart. I happen to be singing in our worship band, um, leading worship that day. In our church, um, the baptismal bath is stage right. Um, if you're looking up on stage, and I, of course, was standing on that side of the stage that day. So she comes out, and my view of her baptism is the rest of the team sitting literally in the front row. And as she comes out of the water, I took a photo because it was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a long time. It's her friends, all of them, my youngest in the middle videoing so that they could she could send it to the rest of the team, just cheering and shouting and jumping up and clapping for her as she came out of the water. And everyone else got to see her, which I loved, and I could see her too. But this view of her friends in the front row behind her was simply amazing. And in the midst of it, literally as I'm on stage, I laughed out loud, thinking I'm the one who's was complaining about the 8 to 10 a.m. softball practice this season. And look what God did. My daughter invited all these kids to church. We had this amazing fun church van time that I got to be a part of with them. And there they were in the front row cheering on their friend as she chose to follow Jesus. And it was just amazing and just such a good reminder of what we were talking about. I thought that this scheduling thing for the winter season was so annoying, and God just laughed at that and showed me pretty quickly how beautiful his plan can be if I would just listen and obey and follow along and stop complaining. And I've taken that to heart and it was just such a good reminder to me in the midst of it, um, to not question that at the some of the biggest times. This is a small example, but it really had big impact um on me and and my questioning of that in the midst of it. That's what obedience is, right? Um so that's my most recent um God story. I have a kind of funny relationship with God, and I he just sticks those in there, and then I can see him just kind of chuckling as I learn it slowly, especially in this situation when he makes it so obvious. Um, that doesn't happen all the time, but I hope this is just a reminder to um to laugh with the insanity, laugh in the chaos, move forward anyway, question things you don't believe are right, but know that sometimes where he's putting up a wall or the things that feel the hardest are sometimes the biggest and best lessons, and maybe fighting it isn't always the end. We've talked about it before, every breakthrough or beautiful thing doesn't come after a season of abundance. Sometimes it's a season of waiting where God's doing the work and and teaching you things, and sometimes spring can be that way, but I hope this spring the rebirth and the excitement renews you and you can lean into it. The more we resist, the more it's going to hurt and the longer it's gonna take. Ask an EMT or a birthing coach, um, any of the things that. The more you fight the pain or the hard things, the more it hurts. Walking through the hard with grace and bravery is the best way through it. It doesn't mean you have to embrace and love the thing that's happening to you, but you do need to understand that God has a purpose for everything He permits and puts in our lives. He always works everything out for the good. As we approach Easter, that same concept holds true and is the heart of the Easter story. If you haven't heard it, what looked like defeat when Jesus died on the cross and felt like the most horrible thing was actually a victory. Can you imagine what the people living then were experiencing? They had been witness to miracles, given the gift of hope when Jesus was alive and walking on this earth and they could see it in their lives, they could see it firsthand, only to watch the hope die on a cross. Valley of darkness, they describe it as despair. But then Sunday came. Hope was restored. A promise that after darkness comes light, salvation, redemption, rebirth, just like spring. I hope that if you're feeling like them right now in a season, disappointed or not able to see the other side of the story, or the schedules don't work for practice, that you remember the promise of Sunday in the Easter story. Trust God's plan for your life and walk in it with purpose, even in the hard seasons. So cheers to whatever season you may be in. May you thrive in it with purpose and intention. If you've made a mistake in this season, take a deep breath and start over again tomorrow. I'm rooting for you. You've got this. Go be great today, and we'll see you here next week.