Spring is Coming

  I woke up to the sun this morning. It was supposed to rain all week. Well, I am so happy to see the grey is gone! I am filled with love today. Everything is not perfect in my life. There are things I am still working on and projects I need to tackle. Things I need to do better. But this morning reminds me Spring is coming. The grey of Winter will pass and there will be a time of rebirth and growth. I have decided to start early. I will make this the Spring of my life. I will exact change and move beyond my comfort zone and venture out to expand my world. If you are feeling down, if things are not going your way, take heart. Stop repeating the hopeless litany of problems you have no answers for. Life is not a complicated equation. An unknowable formula based on a theorem. No, it is not. If you allow yourself to believe you have no control. If you believe you can change nothing, you will be filled with despair. You may not be able to change the big things today. Start smaller. I challenge you today to uplift at least one person. One person who needs a kind word. A strong shoulder. Now, some of you will think "that is so easy for YOU to say. You have no idea what I am going through....Or who will lift me up? When is it MY turn?" I understand that thought pattern. I have been where you are. The first thing I will tell you is that when you help someone else, when you lift someone up, you also ascend out of the gloom. You too, get a blessing.

  I believe this in my soul. I have been so low I could not lift my eyes too afraid of the devastation I would see. My life in such tatters and so forlorn that I just knew not existing would be better than the pain I felt. My soul did not even have enough hope to call out for help. That is bottom. That is Winter. And if you hang in there. If you find a way to hunker down and just get through, Spring will come. Winter is the hard time. The mean season. Where your heart is desolate. When the days are long and dark. There is no sun to warm your face. No sign of growth or change. You can become tricked into believing that this is all your life will ever be. That there will never come a time for your worried mind to rest. Trust me. It will come. Your Spring is coming. Under all that cold ice and bitter cold, hope lays slumbering. And because it is so quiet, because it does not glow in the barren landscape, you think it has passed you by. That somehow, you missed your only chance. For love, for success, for happiness. You are wrong. Put your hand flat against your breast. Stay that way for a moment. Do you feel that. That steady rhythmic beating. That is your reminder. you are still here. As long as you are here you can change your life. You can have more. You can be more. You can succeed, where before you have failed.

  I received an email today. A response to my query letter. My very first reply. It was three short lines. That is all. A very nice agent, at least her note was nice, told me no. That my story was not quite what she was looking for. And then there in that last line she lifted me up. She told me to keep trying. To keep at it. Not to quit. Now, of course I would have loved for her to take one look at my words and fall in love with my message. To find value worth perusing. I wanted a Hollywood story. But of course that did not happen. And you know what? That is just fine. I am so surprised that I was not down. Reading those words only made me smile. Why? Because it meant I had tried. I had set a course and started my next adventure. I may be hundreds of no's away from that one yes. But today, I am one step closer. I am one no down from the last one. Because I will not give up. I will not be deterred from my goals. No one is going to hand me my future. I must go out and make it happen. And because others have done it, I know it can be done. And if it can be done, then I can do it too.

  If you are in your Winter, and you can see no light in the distance, If you and hope have become strangers, reach out. Find something, anything, that will give you joy. I am not talking about winning the lottery joy. No, I mean the always assessable kind. It is in the smell of babies. It is finding extra money in your coat pocket. Start there. And know that every day brings you closer to your own Spring.  What doe your days  of sun look like? What would you love to do? Do it. Start now. Every day to one thing. One thing to bring you closer to who you want to be. No one will hand it to you. No matter what you have been through. No matter how hard life has been on you, you are going to have to do it. It is not a matter of what you deserve. It is a matter of how you believe in ourself. And with that in mind, tomorrow I will construct another query letter. A better one. Crafted better. I will make my case. Because, somewhere in between the very first day I clicked on publish that first time and now, I realized....I am a writer. I will be an author. I do not know the hows or whens just yet, and that is fine. I will keep leaving you things here. I will keep sending out little arrows of promise. And someday I know, one will hit it's mark. The sun is peeking through and I can see green beneath the frost. Spring is coming. I can feel it in the air. Can't you? Spring is coming. Get ready.