May Flowers?

April is history and May is here so why don’t I see any flowers? Sure it’s been unusually cold where I live. In fact, we’ve had so many unexpected cold fronts that the gardeners are afraid to plant and the flowers are afraid to bloom! But the flowers will come despite the weather. They’ll come even if we don’t believe they’ll come.

But, this May that old adage speaks to me in a different way than it usually has. You see, things have been tough lately. We’ve had our fair share of “April showers.” Our family has been touched by serious illness, both physical and emotional. My mother has Alzheimer’s disease and has been in hospice care for over a year. Her decline is slow and steady with unpredictable steep declines thrown in every once in a while to keep us unsettled. One of my children has a propensity to break bones and is now being treated for a thyroid condition that may or may not have caused the bone issues. Another of my children is struggling with the emotional demands of school and begs me on a daily basis to not make her go to school the next day. She is suffering from anxiety and depression which means that we’re all struggling trying to help her. We’ve got a whole team of people working to help us including doctors, therapists, teachers, school counselors, and school psychologists. But, ultimately, it falls on my husband and me to advocate for her and find the help she needs to get better.

I have to say, I’m waiting for our “May flowers” somewhat impatiently. I’m ready to see some blooms. Heck, even a bud would be nice! That’s why the old saying has taken on a new meaning for me this year. Not only does it remind me that we all go through bad times now and again but it also gives me hope that things will get better-that the pain of today will yield the joy of tomorrow. After all, isn’t that what our faith is about-hope? We have hope that we will share the “May flowers” of God’s kingdom after we make our way through the “April showers” of our earthly life. The Resurrection gave us that hope. Hope that our pain has purpose. Hope that we will gain our eternal reward. Hope that there is more to our life than the physical world can give us.

Sometimes, hope and faith are all we have. So we hang onto them like an umbrella during the “April showers” of our life. And, like an umbrella, they don’t keep you completely protected but they can give you the ability to rebound more quickly from the storm.

So, we’ll hang on to our umbrella of faith and hope through this storm and through many more in the future, I would imagine, all the while knowing that storms don’t go on forever and that “May flowers” don’t always come in May.