Longing for Spring: Embracing Today

"I've never longed for Spring as much as I do this year," my 72-year-old friend confesses to my waiting ears. 

The calendar reads March, but white fluff falls from the heavens this morning and covers the vulnerable earth below.  What happens when our Winter never seems to end?  We turn the calendar page, longing, awaiting, desiring for the blossoms to come forth, the sun to warm, and the fragrant trees to grow their leaves once again.  But it just doesn't happen.  The snow still bombards.  The gray remains.  The naked tree branches snap in the wind. 
And. So. We. Wait. Patiently. Anticipating. New. Life. 
But isn't it in the waiting where we either choose to either embrace Today for what it is, or we long for a tomorrow that is never promised? 
I open the door with a two-year-old in tow, and the cold slaps my face.
"Mama, look!"  she exclaims.  "Snow!  Catch it, Mama?  Taste it, Mama?"
Her fingers open to the precipitation that gently lands into her palm.  Her head arches heavenward and her mouth opens to reveal a pink tongue ready to swallow Winter. 

And then I see it: the purple crocus pushing through the frozen ground to open its beauty to a longing world.  This is its time to blossom. To shine.  It's waited nine long months under the heavy ground to break forth powerfully and delicately all at the same time.   
Little feet patter next to mine and run to the flower.
"Smell it, Mama?"     
We get down on all fours and our noses infuse the aroma.  Even in the midst of the hard, the waiting, the longing, the Winter of our soul, there is beauty being created.  Spring will come.  New life will reveal itself.  But in the process we are being made new when we wait on the Lord and see the beauty already all around us.  And maybe, just maybe, in the dead of our Winter, today is our day to bloom.  Maybe someone around us needs to smell the fragrance we emit when we embrace the season we're in.  
"Yes, Baby, let's always catch, taste and smell the good right in front of our eyes.  Thank you for reminding me to embrace Today.