Yes! Spring is here, at least on the calendar. I can smell and see the early signs of spring; the trees are starting to bud; the early flowers have made their way through the soil and are blooming. Even with all this early activity I can’t help but wonder is spring really here to stay or will winter make a comeback?

Will the snow once again blanket the ground instead of the flowers and grass? Will the weather stay a wonderful temperature of not too hot but just that nice mellow warm of in-between summer and winter? As I wonder about the season, we are just starting to enter I find myself mirroring that same feeling for myself. I feel the urge of new life within me, as though I’m starting to come back to life from the winter of ups and downs of cancer. I feel the excitement of new possibilities and zest for life like never before. As though fear has nothing on cancer so why not truly seize the day and truly live while I can. Then the thoughts of will the cancer come back or a secondary one be found?

These back-and-forth thoughts of mine are just as fickle as the weather in early spring, but I know I’m not alone. You don’t have to have cancer to hear the whispers of self-doubt. We all have them, from relationships, career and living out our dreams. Those whispers can keep us from living the life we are meant to live. The whispers of winter can keep you thinking it last forever, that the promise of new life will never come. So, maybe what we need to do is treat those whispers of fear the same way as being followed because those whispers can take your life just like the stranger if left unchecked.

The first is…

Keep calm, acknowledge what’s happening. I know this can be hard, but you can’t ever see the bottom of the pan when the water is boiling, you need it to cool down first.

Pay attention, take those thoughts captive, be alert, don’t let the fear consume you. Don’t just go through life and let thoughts consume you. Be in charge of them, like 2 Corinthians 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Ask for help, Prayer is a big one for me. You can also find someone you trust to confide in because sometimes those whispers are nothing more than a kitty with a very big shadow following you and when spoken out loud you are able to see the truth.

Spring may seem to be on hold BUT it’s still coming, and I can look forward to new life no matter what the calendar or scans say.

Isaiah 43:19

¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland

Do you remember the fun activity of writing in the dirt or sand? You’d write with a stick or finger, maybe play tick tack toe perhaps another game of looking at footprints and trying to figure out who they belonged to. Any of these are fun but they always make me think of the story in the Bible where Jesus wrote in the sand when the women was caught in adultery.

The woman was brought to Jesus by the Pharisees, we might think of them as hypocrites or maybe the hall monitors of the time, they wanted to tattle on the sinful women testing Jesus, he knew this and rose above it by writing in the dirt and asking who is without sin to cast the first stone. He wrote twice in the dirt who knows what was written but when the Pharisees read it and then asked who is without sin to cast the first stone, they could do nothing but walk away leaving only the women on the ground and Jesus. (John 8:1-11)

I have for years read and loved this story, I feel the love and compassion coming alive from the pages but today something more came to me. I read and reread this because in the passages it says a few things I never got before.

First it says Jesus straightened up and asked the women where are you accusers? At first glance you are probably thinking no big deal but the fact that Jesus was mentioned as straightening up (or he stood up) means he was on the women’s level. Yes, he was at her level the son of God on the level of an adulterous women and then he stood up not a judgmental stance but to show this woman she too could stand tall.

Second, He asked her a question then waited for her answer. He gave her respect by asking then waiting for a reply. After showing her respect he wanted her to see for herself that those that brought her to him were gone and he did not condemn her so why stay on the ground but stand tall don’t do it again. Walk away holding her head high know she was loved and should live that way.

I thought how many times I forget to open my eyes; I stay on the ground beating myself up for the things I have done, I forget to stand up then walk away living loved. I forget I can live no longer condemned a life to its’s fullest loved and forgiven. Whether I live feeling condemned or turn into a Pharisee the hall monitors with the judgments for others neither on is the way God wants us to live.

Maybe a good thing to write down and remember daily is, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said no, sir and Jesus said neither do I condemn you.”