The Groundhog didn’t see his shadow this morning.
This means Spring will come early.
This also asserts sometimes God breaks the patterns life has forced us into.
This is a very important phenomenon as we so desperately clammer for a new becoming. Things don’t always go inline with a disappointed long suffering narrative. I know it has taken us years to build our garrisons around broken hearts, disappointed dreams or let down expectations. To attempt to become among the rumble. But after struggling to get my own heart willing enough to shake off the shadows of old patterned insecurity and write out a newsletter to you….The Groundhog interrupts me and this morning’s news had me clicking away a letter to you in minutes.
I woke up groggy not even remembering it was Groundhog Day. I’ve admittedly been underneath a week of the flu. It has been miserable. To remember it was Groundhog day feels like a stretch. Truthfully, I cannot recall the last Groundhog Day worth remembering when it wasn’t 6 more weeks of winter.
Until today.
Not that I’m down on winter, but maybe I’m a little down on winter at this point. Maybe I’m a little down on seeing shadows too.
And then while I was pulling the blackening bacon out of the oven my daughter slides into the kitchen announcing in her fuzzy uggs, “THE GROUNDHOG DIDN’T SEE HIS SHADOW! SPRING IS COMING!” A dance party ensues on the spot. Right there in the kitchen dressed in my amazon prime blue striped jammies and quilted robe around steaming scrambled eggs, blackened bacon and texas pecan coffee swirling with French Vanilla creamer around my usual Friday mug - we are dancing for Spring. Wont’ HE DO IT. In the middle of our redundant routine there has been a notable vibe shift.
God interrupted the pattern. All the sudden it would seem Becoming is certain.
This news makes February feel like the first month of the New Year. A true vibe shift in the narrative towards something fresh, something unexpected, something adventurous. A dispelling of shadows. Something to help unravel the narrative of disappointment or pain or frustration we so carefully monitor. God desires the Hope of Spring while we wait through Winter.
Our hearts, our homes, our health and the stories we tell ourselves need this shift desperately don’t we? As I continue to grapple with how to explain what it means to become with the Lord I find the patterns we follow coming into play. What historically might happen each week, month or year formulates narratives in our hearts, our homes and our health. How we trust the comforts of even the misfortunes we’ve experienced and forget to look to our God that breaks patterns and norms and redundancy to stir our Hope up fresh. To break up the shadowy night and interrupt the pattern.
If all goes according to plan I will graduate with my Masters from Dallas Theological Seminary this coming May. This semester I am taking a course entitled Genesis to Revelation. In a recent lecture the professor brought a point to light that interrupted the reading of the genealogies. “Take notice of where the Lord breaks the pattern?”
They lived, they died, they lived, they died, they lived, they died, walked with God and were no more, they lived, they died, they lived, they died…….wait what……
Did you catch it? Broken pattern. Not what was expected. Not the narrative that was one foot in front of the other. Not the rehearsed order. Not what seemed to follow the pattern being established. God used Enoch and broke camp on normal.
“And [in reverent fear and obedience] Enoch walked with God; and he was not [found among men], because God took him [away to be home with Him].” Genesis 5:24
No shadow of death. Just Eternity. Broken Pattern of ends towards a Merciful Eternal Adventure.
I don’t want to spend this first newsletter of 2024 over romanticizing Groundhog Day or Spring or patterns or Punxsutawney Phil, but I do want to romanticize the beauty of acknowledging a God that refuses to be contained in what narratives we tell ourselves even based on spiritual experiences, or His allowances, or pain or long-suffering. Today shakes the earth in my created heart to the Eternal God I serve that still surprises us with breaking the narrative of human patterns we at times mindlessly rut ourselves into.
This is critical. To know deeper how we understand our willingness to allow the Lord to become our strength and our song even among surprise Groundhog days.
Let me say it another way. Dead Poet’s Society is one of my favorite movies. There is a scene where Professor Keating is attempting to challenge the boys attending the prestigious college prep school over the way they fall into generational institutional patterns mindlessly. They hear a beat or see a line and fall in. He has them walk around the school yard at random at first clapping and marching. Without any instruction they all begin to walk in a circle together marching and clapping to a beat. They create a pattern. It is human nature to build expectations around a perceived pattern of happenings. I am asserting to us a growing fear in our lives as believers that have been so beat down, defeated, disappointed, disillusioned we are beginning to drift into a pattern of living, dying, living, dying expecting to manage our disappointments and inclined to miss God Himself breaking the pattern.
Our brains do this. It finds a pattern and follows the line. Where experience could be a teacher to train us towards wisdom [and I see wisdom as a positive pattern!] the pattern of life defeats could create so many shadows our spiritual brains begin rehearsing how to manage expectations, anticipate disappointment, and mindlessly follow the patterns of 6 more weeks of winter.
What if our narratives shift all the sudden? What if suddenly the Groundhog doesn’t see his shadow and the shadows of winter we have grown accustomed to dodging disappear with the warmth of Spring’s sunshine? Will we be humble enough to see it and break the pattern spiritually, emotionally, and mentally too? To break into Hope alongside God?
Because Spring could be right around the corner or still a few weeks away, BUT TODAY the pattern of the last few years of long overbearing winters was interrupted with this thought: it may not last as long as you think.
I needed the interruption. I am actually convicted over how desperately I needed it. Actually had to have my daughter say it again. Then I had to watch the actual Punxsutawney Phil’s Prediction video on the weather app. The glee and happiness of those surrounding Phil on Gobler’s Knob gave me an unreasonable hilarity towards Hope. I am increasingly aware as the day has continued on just how entwined my heart had grown accustomed to managing disappointment rather than Hoping in a Springtime Savior.
We need Spring. We need broken patterns. Of course we need organization. We have been created by a God who created order out of chaos. But we also crave the adventure of the unexpected. The interrupted pattern. Even the most predictable among us. We crazy the possibility of all not being as it might seem. We click bait the best of them on the unexpected surprise story no one saw coming, but everyone needed. Something deep within our created beings begs to see the pattern break. The bloom emerge from the darkness. The sun burst from out from behind the gray clouds.
God wants to surprise us, becomings.
historically, this month of love has become a month of Ebenezer stones for me.
Where “God has been my help”.
When Samuel marked an Ebenezer in 1 Samuel 7:12 he was also acknowledging the children of Israel coming back to the Lord. So it should be with us - the deep heart place to work through the messy middle of acknowledging false worship, idols and surrender all over again - how desperately dependent and vulnerable it feels to place your full trust in God alone.
Whether you are seen or not.
Whether it is popular or not.
Whether it feels good or not.
Whether you know the outcomes or not.
Stacking stone by stone.
Where God has been our help.
The month of February marks the beauty of life, substantial anniversaries of loss right alongside the anniversaries of miracles. I’m stepping back today and I realize its a month where God has historically broken patterns. We have birthdays we will celebrate the next couple weeks. Then we will turn around and celebrate the anniversary of when my health story changed forever with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. Then we will turn right around and celebrate where I was given a miracle and healing from MS. Broken patterns.
Here is what I am desperate to hear myself and I am grappling around the right language to get you to hear the same thing: It isn’t always they lived, they died…..sometimes its they were caught up with a supernatural God outside of space and time who interrupted the pattern of disappointment with an early Spring.
Life is lived in the juxtaposition of the now and the not yet. Remain hopeful in affliction and steadfast in winter seasons of suffering. Spring is coming.