Winters in Santa Fe, where my family and I live, tend to linger on. Like many Rocky Mountain locations, we can get snow into May. The last frost of the winter may not come until a week or more after Mothers Day. As a good southern boy, I don’t necessarily miss the heat and humidity, but by this time of year I am worn down by the cold and am ready for something balmier.

In February of each year my wife, Stella, and our kids plant seeds in old egg cartons. Watching the seedlings sprout and begin to grow brings hope for warmer weather—and joy for the summer and fall harvests! It’s become a familiar cycle each year. Even though I know intellectually that each year is a cycle, I often find myself thinking and acting as if I will be chilled to the bone forever.

But slowly the days get longer, the air warms, and all around me things begin to bud. The mountain bluebird returns to the juniper tree outside our dining room. Its brilliant sky-blue is so striking it’s hard to look at anything else. When the flower moon comes, we will begin planting our baby sprouts into the garden, each a prayer for God’s provision. What was cold and fallow earth will soon be full of life and food.

I have found my own faith moves in cycles of warm and cold, fallow and blooming. I suspect this is true for many of us. Still, in the deepest and darkest winters of our souls, God is working. Our high desert garden requires work year round. The most obvious is in the spring when we plant, water, and watch the fruits of our labor reach upward toward the sun. But after the harvest, there is still much to be done. Beds have to be cleared and repaired and mulched with goat manure and straw. Fences have to be checked for holes so rabbits won’t eat next year’s crop. All winter long we compost. The work of the garden doesn’t stop. God’s movement in our lives doesn’t stop, even when it feels like nothing is happening. God is always preparing us for a spring, for a blooming of faith that is lush. If we cultivate our spring faith, we will have provision for the winters and be able to remember that even when it’s cold and still, God is always working in our lives.

About the Photo

Flower Moon Over Jemez
Stella Maria Baer

Learn more about Seth & Stella.