Beauty in the Blend

Springtime.

My favorite.

And what a journey it is to get here every year. False spring days coming months before, providing a glimpse of what’s to come before we get smacked with another snow storm or single digit temperature days. Every year, God teaches me something through it.

The first time it hit me, it was a celebration of my life. The life that, just a few years before, I thought was no longer worth living. It came with the reminder that what once looked dead was now coming to life. The year after, God showed me that I am blooming with the trees. That healing and learning and growing are a process, and if they came through immediate change then I wouldn’t appreciate the place I get to as much. He was showing me that I wasn’t buried, I was just planted. Last year, God reminded me that a snowy day wasn’t going to throw off the seasons. He reminded me of the power in worship. I decided that I would be caught singing when the spring time came because THAT was how I was fighting in the winter season, my praise would already be in practice. And this year, I feel God teaching me and reminding me that there is beauty in the blend.

I’ve heard it before. Have you never really experienced pain or trials in life, then you will never really be able to see life as the beautiful thing it is. Trial makes us stronger. My friend said it one day as “pain provides us the training we need to live a victorious life.” I was talking to a friend the other day and he talked about how I’m always so giggly. But I remember so many years of my life where I wasn’t. I remember even in those years, having a family friend refer to me as “Smiley”. It almost felt at times as if he didn’t know my real name. “Hey, Smiley!” He’d say, time after time. I remember the way it made me feel every time. A mix of emotions. I wanted to be smiley. I wanted that to be how people knew me. But I knew that, internally, that was not who I was at all. In fact, those were some of the lowest years of my life. Smiley was a cover for what I was feeling on the inside. But I believe that is part of why I laugh so hard now. The years of pain, grief, heartache, led me to a place where I can now laugh with all of my being, because I’ve learned how to enjoy life in the blend. When I laugh, I laugh with all of my being. But that same idea applies to the flip side too. I remember months before officially giving my life to Jesus, my pastor’s wife telling me about the talent that I’d been blessed with, and how it wasn’t just the talent but also the passion that goes along with it. And what she told me in that moment was something that has always stuck with me. She told me that part of the problem with having that passion was that I would also feel things so much more deeply. The blend. When I laugh, I laugh. But when my heart hurts, it HURTS. I feel things deeply. There is no one without the other, and I wouldn’t want there to be. What a gift it is to feel things so deeply.

It's IN the BLEND.

Growing up, I always loved the fall. But I think when I moved away, I started to realize just how much I’d really always loved spring. I love it with the context of the other seasons. For me, it’s also a reminder that fear won’t last.

Winter was always so bad back home. But there weren’t many times I’d gotten stuck in the snow while driving. My dad was always really good at keeping track of what weather was coming, and he’d make sure I knew before I was planning to go anywhere so I knew that there was a chance I’d get stuck on our long dirt road as I’d be coming home. So the option was normally to not go, or depending on the case, he would offer to drive me. Snow doesn’t scare him. But I remember the first time it snowed after I moved to Pittsburgh. I had my dad’s mentality. Snow didn’t scare me. Until one day it did, when I lost control of my car. It wasn’t a big deal, me and my car are totally fine, but it made me terrified for every time it would start to snow, or if I’d see the little snowflakes on the weather forecast. But I made it through my first two winters. And then came this past winter. And I realized the fear was still there. So when we started to move into warmer weather, I felt like I could breathe a little bit easier. And then came the forecast. Wave after wave of snow in the midst of what I was declaring to be the spring. And what I felt got me through, and what continues to get me through as it is still happening, is the fact that I know it’s almost over. I know spring is almost here. So if it snows for a day, or if there’s a little squall, I will not be discouraged. I will not let it throw off the season I’m moving into/in.

As I stared up into the night sky with my friends a couple of days ago, one of them pointed out that it was a full moon. But another one posed the question “Is it full? Or is it just one step away?” But she talked about the beauty in it either way. It wasn’t cynical. She just knew that it was meant to be fuller, because she’d seen it before, but it didn’t make her appreciate it any less.

Beauty.

Can I share another thing that God has been teaching me about myself in this transition into spring?

He’s been teaching me about the beauty in the blend of who He created me to be. Of who I AM.

I said this earlier, but I grew up in the middle of nowhere. The middle of the woods. I grew up playing in dirt, running around without shoes, and I grew up listening to country music. To be completely honest, I didn’t really know that there was much music outside of country until about the 7th grade. And it almost ruined my life (totally kidding…kinda). As I got older, my love of country music didn’t go away, but I also ventured into some other music, went into a little bit of an emo phase, and I guess that’s kind of where I found my style. It is somewhere in the mix (or blend, should I say) of dark colors, ripped skinny jeans, gauges, tattoos, flannels, etc. The point of me telling you these two very different things really has no significance beyond the fact that it confused me for years and years. Sort of, in a way, making me wonder who I really was, almost like I had to choose whether I could wear cowboy boots or combat boots. Like who I was would lie in the outcome of which I’d choose. But what I felt like God has been showing me is that there is beauty in the blend of them both, along with the other little things that I’ve picked up along the way, because they’re part of who I am. No, I am not my style, I am not what I wear, but my style is specific to me. That beyond even my style, but the way that I act, the strengths that I have, my personality, everything, it makes me…me. And I know who created me. I know that He makes beautiful things. And so in every trait about me, everything He made within me, there is beauty in that blend. Like an artist blends the paint on the canvas, between shades that are darker and lighter, things that others may not think to put together, there is beauty in the blend. It doesn’t have to be such harsh lines, a one side versus the other, but a blend.

And so I’m gonna wear the ripped jeans with the fringe boots.

I’m going to run through the mud, but also wear pretty dresses.

There doesn’t have to be one without the other.

Beauty in the blend.

And so even in the snowy days in the middle of spring like weather, I will appreciate the blend of the crunching snow beneath my feet and the birds chirping above me.