Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Spring is Springing!

Have you been outside to check it out?! This is my favorite time of year - but I say that about summer, fall and winter too!!  :0)  

I just had to get out today and play a bit! Mostly in celebration that I had this whole day blocked off for jury duty which got canceled last night so I have a FREE DAY today!!!! Yahoooo!!!  Which, unfortunately, will entail many errands... but so what!?  I don't have to sit in a stuffy room, under florescent lights (which I can't stand in the least), listening to testimonies that are NEVER as dramatic as what you see on tv, to help decide the fate of someone I don't know, who likely did something they shouldn't have done, to someone that wasn't gonna take it!! Oh.... do I have to miss all that?!  Thank God for BIG mercies!!

So let's go back outside... 
Do you see what's happening out there?!



New growth is pushing through the remnants of the old.  Life is springing forth from that which was dead!  Hope rising from ashes, glory in place of mourning, and beauty to cover old scars.



Do you ever really see that first moment of new life?  Every spring I watch the branches of the trees to see when the start of that first bud will appear and every spring I miss it!  It seems as though, in one moment, the trees are bursting with fuzz and buds!!  But I never see the slightest hint that they're even on the verge of waking.  It's just so sudden, which I suppose is why it's called Spring.  (Be easy, I'm just coming to terms with the fact that the name for the season is so literal!)  In what presents itself to be the slightest moment, with what appears to require no thought or preparation, life springs from the life-less.


But we are not fooled!  There is much going on inside each tree and plant that the naked eye can't see! And if I can take the liberty to compare, there is much going on inside myself that the naked eye can't see either, my own spirit doesn't sense it, my own soul isn't able to perceive it, but one day new life will spring forth!  No, I'm not speaking literally - I am NOT pregnant!! Though there are some babies out there that tempt me to try just one more time - and you know who you are!!!

No, I'm talking about character and personality.  I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago and I would bet neither are you!  Have you watched the change with your own eyes?  Have you observed yourself gradually becoming more gentle and patient, or more bitter and angry?  Were you actively nurturing love and compassion or did they seemingly come out of nowhere?  Were you able to measure the growth of the bitterness that now chokes your heart or was it a slow, deliberate, and secretive growth, unknown even to you, that one day caused the eyes of those who know you best to pop open in surprise, and caused their lips to declare how you've changed.  Or maybe you can point to a season, like a well-timed frost, that killed the buds of kindness, the fragile blossoms of forgiveness, or the tender bulbs of vulnerability.  This is the ever-changing cycle of life within my being that sprouts new growth from the death of the old and which continues to grow me into the person I am supposed to be and am slowly becoming.  



In truth, just like the buds on the tree and the hidden bulbs in my garden, the characteristics that make up who we are lie in wait.  We experience the weather, fight off the bugs, overcome the weeds, take in some nutrients, and clear out the waste.  And somewhere hidden within our being there is a process that is taking place that cannot be seen with the naked eye.  It is often slow and delicate,  unplanned and far from thought out, it's a minute shifting yet a powerful force, because, suddenly, there it is, springing forth in one unexpected moment bold enough for the world to see... the beauty, glory and hope of new life!


And as with all of nature, this undetectable growth is powered by the Creator of the Universe!  This power in me, one individual among the billions in the world today AND witnessed in the trees and plants in my teeny-tiny little yard, which is a fraction of the earth that is so small I can't even name it, is mind-blowing!  Why would He allow His power to be used for someone and something so insignificant?  Why would He care? About any of us or any of this?!

Because He IS love.  He can't help Himself.  And that is why spring springs every year... for God soooo loved us that He sent His son to love us to death, so that we could spring forth to new life!


So Happy Spring!  Get out there and enjoy it! And while you're at it, pull a few weeds - nature's character builders!!! Somehow they found new life as well!!





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