Every year around this time (okay, let’s be honest – by the beginning of the month), I start to get impatient. I am ready to be done with the cold, dark, dreary days and search for any hint of sunshine and warmth. I revel in the days that get up into the 50s or even 60s, only to crash into depression when, inevitably (because, you know, it’s only February), it falls back to the 40s and sometimes (heaven forbid), 30s.
In some ways, this time of year is even harder for me than December and January because in those months, I know I better hunker down and face the knowledge that it is going to be cold and dark at all times. So I get through them (hopefully) with grim determination, knowing that at some point spring will come.
It’s been a lot like this for me in my writing journey lately too. A season of grim determination followed, lately, by impatience. My inner critic berates me, reminding me that I’ve been doing this for four years. That I’ve spent and continue to spend hours upon hours on platform building, trying to find and connect to an audience, trying to figure out the best way to serve them while still pushing for that agent, that contract, that book. The discouragement as I realize how little time I actually have to spend on my manuscripts when I am trying so hard to build an audience. The burst of delight when someone compliments me on the creativity of a post or my recently launched newsletter. The deflation when I spend hours on a reel only to see a couple likes and then it fizzles into obscurity. The thrill when it doesn’t fizzle and I get 800 views! The hope when a query goes out. The weariness when the rejection comes in.
Waiting may be one of the hardest things in life. It feels like we are always waiting. For the agent. For the contract. For the weight loss. For the next step in life. For God to tell us what to do. It begins to feel, for all intents and purposes, like you are spinning around and around on a merry-go-round and you (or at least I) worry that the landing won’t be soft, if it comes at all.
But guess what? Today my first crocus emerged. A yellow one. A reminder of sunshine. That spring is in the air, even when the weather dips into cold again. And when spring does come, it will come with a burst of color as all the flowers emerge, the green leaves take their place, and the sun reminds us what it is to breathe.
And that’s when I realize that even though the waiting period is hard, even when the impatience drives me nearly up a wall, there is a beauty in that too. Because with each step forward, I get stronger. I learn. I persevere. And I value that crocus so much than if it had been there all along.
God does have a plan. We just have to have the patience for it to bloom.
Forest Idylls 
This was a very cathartic and encouraging piece. Thanks for writing it.
I’m so glad it was encouraging!