By Kimberly Schluterman

Well, it’s that time of year again. After a record-bustingly cold winter, during which my town was colder than the South Pole for at least one night (and Single! editor Donna was happily in sub-tropical Brazil for its 70-degree summer), spring has finally arrived. I hate the winter. I hate all the bare trees, the grayness of the bark and the air and the ground. I hate being able to see my breath. I hate having to cover my arms and legs as if the air itself is somehow toxic to them. Why can’t I just go outside, let my body absorb a little of the sun’s magical Vitamin D-producing properties, and embrace the beautiful world around me? But that’s not what winter is. Winter is when everything is dead. Errrg.

One of my most favoritest conversations I’ve ever had with my husband was a couple years ago, when I asked him one cold day, “Do you think it’ll ever be warm again? I really hate to be so cold. ” I’ll never forget his simple yet profound reply: “I assume there will eventually be spring.” It made me think of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when, in the years before Aslan came to Narnia, it was always winter but never Christmas.

But now it’s finally spring, just as my wise husband predicted. The daffodils are blooming, the irises are peeking up, the tulips are thinking about it, and all the trees have the tiniest little buds on them. The air is fresh and warm, ready to greet my occasionally exposed arms and toes. I guess that’s the thing about the non-Narnian spring: no matter how long it takes to get here, you know it will eventually come. It’s a guarantee that unless the rapture happens, there will eventually be spring.

That’s how life is too. Life has seasons apart from nature’s seasons. Sometimes it’s a little rough and you experience seasons that are hard to understand. Just as the animals head south and the flowers retreat, sometimes it feels like all the good and wonderful things have bailed on us. A friend of ours is having a really hard time right now as his wife of three years, and the mother of his child, has recently left him. Judging by his Facebook posts, his heart is stuck in the pre-Aslan Narnia and he has no hope that spring or Christmas will ever come again. But even though he can’t see it right now, there will eventually be spring for him too.

As Relient K reminds us in the lyrics of their song “In Like a Lion (Always Winter),” the deep hope within us is what will sustain and keep our hearts warm in the midst of the ice and snow.

The coming of spring seems a fitting time to announce my life-changing plans I mentioned a couple months back. I am happy to report that I am no longer a working girl and am once again a college student! Weird, right? I know. Weirder still is what I picked to major in. I used to make fun of business majors, but now I am one. I should graduate in about two years with a B.S.B.A. in accounting, and then maybe I can get a real job. Maybe in that job, winter won’t come out of season. Man, am I glad that spring is here.