When I was a young girl, I once rode with my grandmother to her sister’s rural farm in North Carolina.

We walked to a patch of earth where irises grew in rows. As they bloomed, my great aunt had written on the leaves with a black marker to take note of which colors were which. She dug up some bulbs for my grandmother to take home.

The memory of that trip — and carrying home the hope of future blooms in grocery bags — still remains with me at nearly thirty years old. The florals had experienced the ebb of flourishing and the flow of dirt shaking loose afterwards. Saved for other soil, they were meant to pop up and colorfully unfurl during the next spring.

We see this pattern outlined insightfully in Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 AMP. “There is a season (a time appointed) for everything and a time for every delight and event or purpose under heaven—A time to be born and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.”

Truly, God has made everything beautiful in its own time.

In life, just as with the irises from my childhood, we share that frail sense of being uprooted and transported in plastic before being back in solid ground. After we are transplanted to the pine straw in garden beds of beneath-the-surface seasons, we wait. The waiting might look like experiencing friendlessness, being single or single again, a lack of adventure, figuring out a job situation, navigating grief, finding a new church home, keeping a healthy habit (or trying to break a bad one), a trial that causes weary tears, or whatever else one might fill in the blank.

What happens in the space between buried and budding again?

Here is where it gets awe-inspiring and hope-filled: The buds to come are actually protected — safe and sound within the rhizome, or bulb, while in the ground during the winter season.

Life may feel mundane and lonely, but Jesus is keeping us snug, too — protected so that when spring arrives, we can embody beauty that’s been cultivated in the bleak winter.

Everything, even uprooting, will be lovely and happens appropriately (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

If you feel stuck and frustrated, hold on and be comforted. He is doing something within you, beyond sight. And you are safeguarded.

Surprises could arrive. One door can close in exchange for a better one. We no longer have to be afraid of being uprooted and placed in a different terrain because we can trust it was for a “purpose under heaven” — and we know that Jesus will “fulfill his purpose” for us.

We’re gonna bloom. And, in the meantime, let us pray: “Jesus, help us to know that ‘now’ is beautiful, too.”

Friends, how will you celebrate the spring of your soul when it arrives? Maybe you’ll order an iced strawberry matcha with cold foam, and pair it with a journaling session at a coffee shop. Or maybe you’ll fix yourself some lavender lemonade to enjoy on your front porch while soaking up the pretty weather . . . worship music on, of course.

However you choose to acknowledge it, may honoring the new season bring refreshment, joy, and hope.