Winter Won't Last Forever, I Promise

It's been spring-like here in Minnesota the past few days. An odd thing for us for January. We are used to temperatures well below zero many days, cold winds, blowing snow and a blanket of white covering everything you can see. Of course, even though that's the "norm," we know in Minnesota that our weather can often be quite outside the norm. So, it's thawing. We've had 40 degree temperatures, sunshine and rain. The snow has mostly all melted except for big piles or drifts that hold together longer, the icicles hanging from trees and buildings have all dripped off or fallen off and the ground is thawing. Instead of snow and ice we have water and mud.
It's amazing when we are so used to the cold temperatures that 40 degrees feels so incredibly nice. I went out today without a coat and didn't even realize it until I was in town. (Hopefully my mom doesn't read that, she'd still shake her head at me.) And even though when I step outside and feel the moist warmth that is so refreshing and welcome, I can't help but hold back tears as I look out my window at the world melting. All I see are L & L, our foster children who came to stay with us during the melting months and into the spring of last year. All of my memories of this type of weather include them and I can't help but miss them and worry about them. We wished and prayed and wanted for them to become a part of our family. They went back to their birth parents and while I hope for the best, I can't help but worry constantly, knowing the challenges they faced in the past in that living environment.
I picture their bright eyes and hear their beautiful laughs as they jumped in puddles, climbed snow piles and tackled me. I remember the chaos of stripping down 3 mud-covered toddlers on the rug by the door before they could make it any farther and plopping them all in the tub for baths and tossing all the clothes in the washer, only to repeat the entire ordeal each day. But all the remembering in the world can't ease my worry and hurt over losing them and the horrible reality of knowing I can no longer protect them. I was their mom, and I couldn't protect them. Often I wonder if they blame me, for abandoning them too, just like every other adult in their life had done. They had let themselves get attached, love us, trust us even. And then one day we said goodbye and they never saw us again. I could go on and on about how I hate the system and spend all day playing out the "what would their lives be like if they had stayed", but mostly I just hurt. I ache to cuddle their tiny bodies while reading a book, or play one more game of ring around the rosy. I would give anything to watch them run around our yard or give me big smiles with popsicle juice running down their chins. And I can sit and sulk in that pain and hurt, entertaining negative thoughts about the evil in the world never getting better.
God nudges me in those moments and reminds me I'm getting wrapped up in the wrong places again. It can be so easy to forget just what life is about, just what we're here for. When the world is so twisted and messed up and we feel so out of place, I have to remember that this is not my home. That hope that someday I will go to heaven and NEVER EVER watch another child be treated with anything less that perfect love, never feel worry or hurt, that is the hope I cling to. I am so blessed in my journey to have been given so many reminders of that. When our winter gets so long that we can't remember anymore what summer even feels like, all of the sudden we get one of these 40 degree days. You know the feeling...you step outside and feel the sunshine on your face, the warmth in the air, the birds chirping, and you can just sigh and say "that's what spring feels like". Days like that are reminders to us that winter won't last forever, and spring is coming. Luckily for us, just like God give us warm moments to hold on to, He also gives us reminders here on Earth to help us remember heaven is coming. I hold on to the pieces of my faith that give me that same reassurance. Sunday Mass, Adoration, a special connection in prayer, a friend who shares the faith, seeing the love of the Trinity reflected in my family, a beautiful funeral....It's in those moments that we just KNOW better days are coming. Hold on to those moments, make it a priority to make more of them in your life, and use that reassurance to make it through the cold times in life with never-ending hope in what is to come.