I’m joining today with the Five Minute Friday community of writers who write for 5 minutes about a one-word prompt.

Today’s writing prompt is SPRING.

When I think of spring, I think of new growth. 

It’s a time of coming out of hibernation as I open myself up to new possibilities; daring to dream again. 

Each season serves its own purpose, and this past winter for me was a time of solitude and retreat. But as signs of Spring slowly emerge, I can feel my soul longing to emerge, too. 

It yearns for community and connection, a desire that my soul didn’t hold in the long, dark night of those cold winter months. 

But as I stand in anxious excitement at the precipice of new buds and blooms, I simultaneously feel the dull ache of pain as my roots grow and stretch wide again.

I think that’s the part of Spring most of us forget; the growing pains that come from re-emerging from winter’s rest. 

Author and writer, Gunilla Norris, understands the discomfort that comes from new growth as her words from her book, ‘Being Home’, speak deeply to my tired soul,

“How hard it is to know

When the pot is too small for the plant. 

Some plants need to be contained, held very close. 

Others cannot be crowded. 

I don’t know when I myself am too pot-bound,

lacking courage to be replanted, 

to take the shock of new soil,

to feel into the unknown and to take root in it. 

This drying out, this self-crowding

sneaks up on me. It seems I must always feel

a little wilted or deadened before I know

I’m too pot-bound. 

This African violet must first be cut and divided. 

The knife goes through the root. 

The white flesh exposed and moist

looks as if it is bleeding. 

It must have soil immediately

so the plant won’t die. 

Then water. Water taken in from below. 

This water must seep up into the plant

by infusion. Then comes the waiting

as the shock registers. 

Days and weeks of waiting. 

It will be months before a new leaf appears. 

Perhaps the plant won’t make it. 

So it is when the time comes for me to be cut

and divided so as to grow again. 

Help me to see this not as a problem

but as a process. Help me surrender

to the growth that only comes with pain, 

with division, with helplessness, with waiting. 

Especially the days and weeks of waiting.”

Help me surrender to the growth that only comes with pain. This line brings to mind a piece of cherished wisdom my spiritual director shared with me some weeks ago. 

She said that pain is always the prelude to healing. 

Well, if pain is the prelude to healing then it must also be the prelude to growth. 

So, here, as the seasons change and winter transitions slowly into spring, I am learning how to hold both discomfort and anticipation; pain and joy. 

Each season has a different song to sing to each of us. For me this year, spring’s song sings words that remind me growing pains are evidence of a life being lived. 

I stretch and groan, and rub my sore muscles from months of immobility, my body resisting what my soul knows is true. 

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Colossians 2:6-7

I must continue. 

It’s time to grow again.