New Life

Looking out my bedroom window this morning, I spotted the first tiny, fresh, green leaves of spring misting over bare, brown branches. What a welcome sight after the long, dark, Alaskan winter. Sometimes it seems that winter here just will never end…but it finally does, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but spring always comes!
Everything looks dead, cold, and hopeless as the far north’s endless night stretches on, but gradually the short hours of sunless light lengthen and then as the sun’s weak warmth grows stronger and brighter, one day those new baby leaves appear, spreading a soft feathering of green over the bare branches ,and our hope turns into reality and reality into joy.
Those branches that seemed so lifeless, the hard, frozen ground that held no evidence of any life at all, out of those very things, with the sun’s warmth, come new living foliage…fresh, vibrant, green and growing.
The old dry leaves and grass are gone and brand new ones spring forth from the old roots. There was no evidence of it, but underneath the surface, in the cold deadness of winter, they were still alive. All they needed was the warmth of the sun to bring out that new life.
That brown, dry, wrinkled spring bulb has to go through a time of cold and darkness, before it can again become the new springs blooms, which are always the brightest and most colorful of all. They look so empty, devoid of any life, colorless and hopeless….but somewhere inside there is still a tiny spark of life.
Seasons of winter come to all of our lives, some darker and colder than others. The icy winds of fear, grief, pain, loneliness and disappointment howl over us, swirling a heavy blanket of utter despair around us that shrouds our hearts in its frozen grip, numbing our hopes for the future, and paralyzing us with an emptying intensity.
But inside our hearts, under the pressing, frozen weight of ice and snow, there is still that small spark, just a flicker of life that He has covered with his protecting hand. He, himself, allows this season to encompass us, because He knows we need it, to grow into the beauty He plans for us.
Finally, when He knows this season’s growth is sufficient, and can no longer bear to see us in such pain, with tender mercy and grace, He gently cups the almost imperceptible flicker, and just breathes over it. The dying embers glow with new hope. A warm spring breeze lightly dances over the barren landscape, spreading that hope to the farthest reaches of our soul.
The Son’s warm rays penetrate through the ground, melting the snow, bringing water and warmth. The tiny spark grows, breaking through the ground into the light, and finally bursting into full bloom. Spring’s promise has overtaken the empty death of winter and replaced it with newness, life and irrepressible joy! With breath-taking color and intricate detail, it blossoms back into the bright greenness of new life, becoming something delightfully refreshing and infinitely beautiful.
May 8, 2009