i don’t know where you are these days, what’s broken down and what’s beautiful in your life this season. i don’t know if this is a season of sweetness or one of sadness. but i’m learning that neither lasts forever. there will, i’m sure, be something that invades this current loveliness. that’s how life is. it won’t be sweet forever. but it won’t be bitter forever either. if everywhere you look these days, it’s wintery, desolate, lonely, practice believing in springtime. it always, always comes, even though on days like today it’s nearly impossible to imagine, ground frozen, trees bare and spiky. new life will spring from this same ground. this season will end, and something entirely new will follow it.

“evergreen” | page 212 | shauna niequist | bittersweet