A Spring in My Step

It's here! Officially and unofficially, Spring is here. Things are blooming in variegated tones. Birds are fluttering in all their glorious regalia. Insects are flourishing in the absence of a hard freeze. Blooming dogwoods announce the coming of Easter. Yes, Spring has sprung and it's WONDERFUL!
Why is it we all seem to smile a little broader, walk a little lighter, and feel a little more energetic at the first breath of Spring? Some people can't wait to get outside. There are those who can't wait to garden; those who look forward to spring sports; and those who just enjoy more hours of daylight.
Not me. I've got it inborn AND ingrained in me that there's one thing the HAS to be done before all that other foolishness - SPRING CLEANING! My mother did it. Her mother did it. And I'm pretty sure her mother's mother did it!
It starts in the closets and drawers. All the winter clothing is moved into the attic or spare closets. The spring and summer clothing is brought out and cleaned, repaired, sorted and put into its proper place. Some things are given to charity or neighbors or family. Nothing ever goes to waste as long as the fabric is still good, for it can always be sewn into something else.
Then every square inch of the house - interior and exterior - must be cleaned, polished, and sparkling. No boot camp Sargent could get any more work out of two kids and a reluctant dad than my mom!
I joke about it, but when all was done, it was something to behold. It gave us a sense of pride and togetherness like nothing else. It made us all stand a little taller and step a little livelier, knowing how much we had put into caring for our home.
Nowadays, I find myself doing a sort of internal "spring cleaning." With the coming of each spring and the rebirth it represents, I tend to search deep within myself for the wintery things to put aside. There are dark closets of the soul - pieces of unconfessed pain or fear I insist on bearing alone - to be purged. There are some ideas I've outgrown, yet still cling to that need to be left to Christians less mature in the faith. There are places I've let go, neglected, that I need to pay attention to, polish up, and find a sense of pride in for the sake of the gospel.
Most of all, spring is the time to remember that all the rebirth, all the growth, all of this wouldn't be possible without the resurrection. I would be blinded to all these possibilities if I were still living in the darkness of insanity that was my life without the forgiveness, grace and love born in Jesus Christ and won by his death and resurrection.
John 17:26 (NLT) says "I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”
Each spring cleaning, I grow a little closer to the person God wants me to be. Jesus keeps revealing more and more to me the more I open myself to Him and his teachings by emptying myself of my "stuff." And each time I feel a sense of pride as we grow closer. I can stand a little taller knowing I have tended my spiritual garden. I can step a little livelier knowing my burdens have been lifted and I am forgiven and free.
Spring cleaning anyone?