Have you ever had one of those dark, lonely nights that refused to end?  How about a long cold winter that would not yield to Spring?  These frustrations are not just about time, they are about the rhythm of life.  There is not just a simple of passage of time from past to future.  Life also has a pattern of time that make life feel more circular than linear.

In nature, patterns in time are quite common.

Egg-larvae-pupa-butterfly

Fall-Winter-Spring-Summer

Birth-life-death-decay-new life

These patterns in time offer a sense of continuity amid the change in life.  When we lose a sense of the ebb and flow of living be become trapped and fearful.  When these patterns appear to be disrupted we become Chicken Little crying out, “The sky is falling!”

We need the rhythm to maintain perspective.  Life uses these patterns to engender hope and encourage patience.  Life uses patterns in time to foster a sense of security and make possible some degree of order in a chaotic world.  When we are “trapped” in a long winter or a painful experience, we can find patience by broadening our view a bit until we can see the pattern emerge.  More often than not, this pattern will appear to be a cycle, a “coming around’ that will offer a stillness of spirit and a broad enough vista to bring hope to our troubled soul.

We may lament the loss of the Fall to the cold winds of Winter, but we can take heart that the warm breeze of Spring will come again.  In seasons of want we can look to the coming season of plenty.  And, in seasons of plenty we can live in gratitude for we know that it has not always been  as it is now.

And so, in the dark, lonely nights look for the light of the dawn that is already present in your soul.  Endure the darkness.  Grow through the darkness. But trust in the pattern in time that tells you that the sun shall rise in the glory of a new dawn.