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The calendar says it's spring, but the weather forecasts say winter has forgotten to take a hike. Just days after we celebrated the arrival of spring, white stuff, aka 'snow' (the new four letter word) fell once again from the sky. Even my 9 year old son complained that he was sick of snow. You know it's been a long winter when a nine year old boy moans at the threat of more snow rather than falling to his knees to plead the gates of Heaven for it to be true.
Upon losing track of which number snow fall for the winter we were experiencing or anticipating, I adopted a mantra to help keep me from complaining. That mantra was, "Spring will come." I figured it has come every year; it will come again. Renewal, rejuvination, rebirth. It will all come. And, when we pulled out our spring basket on March 22 and filled it with seeds to plant, bubbles to blow and eggs to dye, I replaced the mantra of "Spring will come" with "Spring has sprung."
But, I looked outside today and spring most definitely has not sprung. Aside from rain saturating the earth, there are few signs of spring's arrival. I still have to grab a coat when I go outside. A few buds are peeking through the ground, but not many, and I wonder if the ones brave enough to rear their buds will survive. Temperatures have dipped below freezing multiple nights since spring "arrived." (***And, now, on April 15th, after many more buds have erupted and many vegetables have been planted, it snows and is below freezing after experiencing glorious temperatures in the seventees just days ago.)
Upon losing track of which number snow fall for the winter we were experiencing or anticipating, I adopted a mantra to help keep me from complaining. That mantra was, "Spring will come." I figured it has come every year; it will come again. Renewal, rejuvination, rebirth. It will all come. And, when we pulled out our spring basket on March 22 and filled it with seeds to plant, bubbles to blow and eggs to dye, I replaced the mantra of "Spring will come" with "Spring has sprung."
But, I looked outside today and spring most definitely has not sprung. Aside from rain saturating the earth, there are few signs of spring's arrival. I still have to grab a coat when I go outside. A few buds are peeking through the ground, but not many, and I wonder if the ones brave enough to rear their buds will survive. Temperatures have dipped below freezing multiple nights since spring "arrived." (***And, now, on April 15th, after many more buds have erupted and many vegetables have been planted, it snows and is below freezing after experiencing glorious temperatures in the seventees just days ago.)
We long for spring, and we have caught glimpses of it. Tomorrow morning many of the glimpses may have frozen to death overnight but that is not entirely the point. Sorry to be a downer here. I promise this post will end on a good note.
Yes, we long for spring while we endure winter.
Spring has come but it hasn't, not the spring our hearts truly long for.
The winter of this fallen earth remains even as I take in the beauty of blooming buds outside.
Our friend, Jonathan, who is just in his thirties, lingers in the hospital for months now trying to recover from his THIRD kidney transplant.
Another friend sends a sad text letting me know she has lost the baby she prayed many years for and had a privileged 7 weeks to carry in her womb.
Then there is the woman from Utah who was arrested for murdering and covering up the remains of six of her own babies which is not only hideous but deeply hurtful in light of the loss my friend is still mourning.
Positive thinking only gets us so far and it just does not erase these realities.
Nirvana is nowhere to be found in hospital rooms or jail cells.
And, I have thought, "OH, Jesus, how I LONG for spring....not just the spring that brings daffodils and daisies but the spring that brings YOU again, the spring that ushers in the new earth and new heaven, new bodies for those who are in Christ, the new Kingdom of His righteous reign."
But, "spring" will come. It will. There is something, rather someONE who will take us farther than self affirmations. There is someONE who exceeds the state of nirvana, who will take all the wrongs of this world and one day make it right, who will call all evil to account, who will fully and finally shackle all that shackles us, who will burst on the scene will more brilliance than any row of azaleas ever could display.
His name is Jesus.
And, he came to earth once. We celebrate His first coming at Christmas.
This week, we not only remember His dying but also rejoice at His resurrection because it assures us that death has been conquered, eternal life in Heaven with Him is possible, spring will come again.
What is in my heart and what I have tried to communicate in this post is perhaps more succintly and poetically expressed in the lines taken from one of our family's favorite series, "The Chronicles of Narnia",
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
We WILL have spring again.
1 comment:
Actually today, looking out at my flowers slain, I felt a bit like Jonah, mourning the loss of his beloved vine.
There is much more to mourn in life than the death of flowers (Ooo, that would make a great title for a book, "The Death of Flowers"). The most recent weight for me has been the death of a 25 year old Egyptian girl who was delivering a meal to a needy family and was pulled out of her car by a mob of a Muslim "brotherhood" and was killed when they saw she was wearing a cross necklace. We do NEED a true and real spiritual spring.
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