Seasons change, the lyrics stay the same
The “Sigh no more” the album debuted in 2009 but didn’t find me until the fall of 2011. This was their debut studio album before they were “mainstream”. When skinny jeans were still cool and being “hipster” and buying your clothes from the thrift store wasn’t as widely popular and common as it is now. It was the fall of my senior year, I was 17. It was ironic. I was dying for more freedom, independence, and graduation (like any high school senior). I was angsty, busy, overwhelmed, and in love (before you laugh I married my high school sweetheart and were coming up on 10 years of marriage ;) ). I grew up in a very strict and sheltered household and always felt confined and that I had to fight tooth and nail for anything I cared about or wanted to do.
The chorus of “After the storm” gripped me. Really, these words carried me through the realities of crappy part-time jobs to pay for expenses, dual credit college classes, the stress of pulling together everything for high school transcripts and graduation, family trauma, and all the preparations and plans for everything to come after high school.
“There will come a time you’ll see with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see what you find there, with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair”.
I could look back and laugh at what my then 17-year-old self-defined as a “hard season” although there were certainly challenges and difficulties. These words then carried me through the challenges of being a newlywed, through separation and reconciliation. Through the darkness of postpartum depression and anxiety, through health crises, and through 4 years of being a student working mom, so many anxiety-induced midterms, finals, deadlines, and due dates. Now I find myself in a season that has been ripe with disappointment, months of rejection, hard work, and no fruit.
These words come for me again…. “Get over your hill and see what you find there. With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair”. Something beyond months of disappointment. And all the closed doors that aren’t the end. What’s over this hill? What’s on the other side of yours? I hope and pray there’s a version of me more healed, more whole, less broken, a little calmer, and more settled on the other side of this season. There has been before. So for now, I let these words carry me.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Words to Carry".
