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Sunday grace – looking for spring

Apr3

It’s been a while, friends. Sometimes life twists and turns like a tilt-a-whirl, and I hold on for dear life.

I’ve been in a season of intense Bible study, just what I needed in the zig zagging. God’s Word speaks truth when other voices spill discouragement, fear, discontent, and misery. In the story of Ruth, the Moabitess, I read of redemption and being chosen. In surveying the Old Testament, I saw God’s story unfold, His love and faithfulness spilled across pages, a plan taking shape in the form of His Son. In the Names of God I see my Living Lord with fresh eyes in all of His glorious character, unique and holy, unlike any other. The breath of the Almighty speaks through His Spirit, the Ruach, creating words on fragile pages, and I inhale deeply to keep breathing.

Despite the ups and downs of weather, spring speaks in the bird songs of the pre-dawn. Even on the coldest of days, they praise their Creator, lifting my spirits. Daffodils spilled their hopeful beauty early and now they are gone. As the lone plum tree dresses in white, I watch the redbud trees begin to blossom in the yard and along the highways as I travel. I am still warming by the gas logs with hot coffee in the wee hours of the morning, and even Maisie doesn’t stay out long. I want to wear bright colors, but I grab a sweater or jacket on my way to the door.

I’ve been perusing old photos, some in albums and many more in boxes, divided by year and season. It is one area I feel failure. I know exactly when and why I stopped putting pictures in albums. A major life event flipped us upside down, and I was caught off guard and totally unprepared for the challenges that would be required of me. I continued to take lots of pictures, but empty albums gathered dust on the shelf. Once I got behind, it seemed impossible to catch up. I look at the disarray and despair at it.

Only God knows the implications of wintery seasons, how they seem long and harsh, yet they are meant to point us to the One who holds time in His hands. I learn to trust Him in the long nights, wrapping myself in the warmth of His presence and leaning hard on promises from His Word. Growing in grace is the reward of walking through trials as I witness His provision and needed strength.

I learn to depend less on me and more on the Almighty who holds all things together.

As I look at those fading photographs, I know He was there with us in it all, sustaining us by His powerful arm and His gentle mercy. His love was enduring when we laughed and cried, when we had plenty and when we were in need. In sickness and in health.

I wept this week, remembering, as I gazed at faded photos. The journey included pain and suffering, death and disease and distance, yet there was joy, laughter and sweetness. God is good in all of it.

The Psalms speak to me as writers experienced life just like me, the ups and the downs, the joyful songs of praise and the questions of “how long?” I always find solace and communion with those saints gone before me.  

As I gain wisdom through experience, I keep surrendering to the unknown. It is not a “one time and done” for me, this thing of submission. I tend to do things my way until I cannot. My Father knows what I need every single day and is willing to provide. But sometimes I keep working at it, until I am at the end of myself, only then realizing He was waiting for me to relinquish control.

There is comfort in every prayer, knowing He hears my voice, leans down to listen to my tearful whispers, as He catches the droplets in a bottle. He calls me His own. I am precious in His sight. I humbly bow in awe of Him.

This Holy Week, as I look toward Jesus’ last Passover meal with His close friends and the road to Calvary, the moon in the sky moves toward its fullness as a sign, as if it might reveal something of a greater message. On the cloudy nights when I cannot see the moon, it is still there. My lack of seeing it does not diminish its reflected glory. When the clouds part, I know the moon was there all the time. In the same way, I know the Father is always there, in every situation, even in my blurred vision.

I remember that Jesus took on flesh, walked dusty roads and laughed with His disciples. He endured storms and ate from the harvest. He saw suffering and healed. He wept at the tomb, then raised the dead. He suffered in a broken world so He could mend and make us whole. He purchased salvation and Shalom for the world, offering it in nail-pierced hands. Whosoever will may come and partake.

As spring whispers newness, the cold dormancy gives way to life. Flowers will bloom again. Birds build nests and the geese in the lake across the road will hatch yellow goslings. Wildlife will emerge from their hibernation. Trees will burst with green and wave in the winds. Life comes forth because the Father wills it. He controls all creation, all of life. And all of my days.

“Our Saviour, King and Shepherd calls us home
And on our homeward journey bids us sing,
To join that all-renewing song to him
Which all creation sings.”

— Malcom Guite, David’s Crown

Monday grace

Mar15

Spring presses herself onward while winter clings with a tight-fisted hold.

I walk the yard and notice the signs of beginnings. The crocuses by the front porch surprise me every year. Buds on branches are full. The forsythia bush opens tender flowers despite the cold. And daffodils by the side of the house bloom enough for a bouquet on the kitchen table

I listen to the sounds of the season, early bird choruses, frogs croaking in puddles, geese fluttering as a pair, abandoning the flock, preparing to nest.

The trees in my yard are winter bare, awaiting the surge to bring forth life again, except for one oak by the drive. It clings to last year’s leaf collection, all dry and brown, unwilling to turn loose.

Like the oak tree, I sometimes cling to an old and lifeless past. I bear scars, but wounds are meant to heal. What happened cannot be undone, only forgiven. I may wish I’d made a wiser choice, used better words, walked a path less traveled, treasured a relationship, opened my heart, but I cannot ask for a do-over.

Sometimes I long for what was but is no more, binding me to yesterday, unable to move forward or rejoice in today. Or I simply crave another’s perceived Facebook life, assuming it is better and easier, seen though my lens of discontent.

I’m clinging to dead leaves.

Old journals and picture albums stir memories and the emotions of life events: birthday celebrations and holidays, vacations and family gatherings. Remembering is good. The past shows where God led me. I was there. Now I am here by His grace. There’s no turning back or retracing of steps. The road leads forward, and I must press on, laying aside weights and sins, regrets and longings, that are heavy like a burdensome backpack.

” . . . when I hold on to the wrong things, the wrong things hold on to me.” — Emily P. Freeman

I’ll be observing my oak tree, watching as it swells with spring’s energy, laying bare its branches in readiness for the new and fresh. It will release winter’s hold and open to creation’s beauty.

I pray to release what cleaves to and hinders me as I walk with Christ in what still feels like a winter season. I ask the Father to refill me with the Holy Spirit’s renewing life force, the energy and power of a God who knows no boundaries or limitations. His grace is strength for the journey.

Let Spring bring forth.

Monday grace.

Sunday grace

Apr1

Very early in the morning while it is yet dark, I rise, remembering the words penned about  Mary. She made her heartbroken way to a garden expecting to offer the spices of death.

Instead, she was first to receive the hallelujah message and went to proclaim it with a glad and believing heart.

“I have seen the Lord!” she said.

When I was a small child, mother bought new clothes for me to wear on Easter morning, from socks and shoes to underwear and slip. Dress, hat and gloves were spanking and sparkling fresh. I was new from the hide out.

Today,  I reach for a skirt and top that’s been hanging in my closet for years. I add a purple sweater since it is a springy Easter-like color. I put on my mother’s vintage wind-up watch and the earrings my eldest granddaughter made for me when she was a child. I reach for two bracelets, gifts from good friends, adding the one that says “forgiven” and another with golden charms attached, words written on circles, “Messiah,” “King,” “Merciful,” “Jesus.”

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I’m not new from the hide out, but I am new from within, a new creation through Jesus.

What other philosophy, religious regulations, treatment plan, or heart surgery can make someone new? In the dark of a hidden meeting Nicodemus faltered at the idea of re-entering his mother’s womb to be reborn.

It was and is what Jesus offers to those who can believe He is who He says He is – Lamb of God, the Promised One, Redeemer, Mediator of a better covenant, intercessory Great High Priest.

No longer called a sinner, I am proclaimed saint, clothed in the righteousness of the One who is worthy of the title of Savior.

I once walked in darkness, but now I am in the light.

I once was lost, but now I am found.

I once wore the stained garments of my own sin, but now I am clean.

And like Mary, I proclaim, “I’ve seen the Lord!” He is alive forevermore.

Alleluia!

Sunday grace.

 

 

 

 

Welcome sweet springtime

Mar22

The calendar recorded the first day of spring this week, but it seemed Mother Nature didn’t get the memo.

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Sweet William and I bundled in coats and scarves to run errands on Tuesday. Then Wednesday it snowed for hours. Wet and heavy, it continued to pile higher on the deck railing and hung on branches of trees until I wondered if the cedar tree in the back yard would break under the load.

 

 

Daffodils huddled under a blanket of white, and the yellow forsythia blooms peeked through sadly. The shapely Bradford pear looked as if it had already bloomed, the tips of branches coated with white.

It was stunning to look at from the warmth of the house.

In the early dawn of a frigid morning, I heard the birds singing their spring song. They seemed undisturbed with this minor setback. They know what their tiny beating hearts know.

Spring is coming.

Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song by that title, months after his young daughter was tragically killed in his family’s own driveway. I cannot imagine the pain, the dark depression, the long winter of the soul he endured. He must have grasped for something bigger and stronger than himself during the heaviness of grief to have penned such hopeful words.

“And my heart’s heavy now
But I’m not letting go of this hope I have that tells me
Spring is coming, Spring is coming
And all we’ve been hoping and longing for soon will appear”

I played the song again and again when my own heart sat in the darkness of gloom and despair. Its message of hope sings to me even now and offers something more. Something more than sinking in sorrow, more than allowing fear to swallow me, more than feeling hopeless and alone. No matter the heartbreak, as winter lingers longer than we think we can bear, spring is coming.

It is God’s order and plan, the movement of seasons, the rotating of sun and moon, the earth setting in its perfect orbit for all of us to live and breathe and thrive.

Eventually we all will experience what feels like a long, cold winter, and we become desperate for change, for life to spring forth from hard ground, to see beauty come from ashes.

Hope itself is like a star  –  not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity.
  —  Charles H. Spurgeon

The season of Lent is a waiting and hoping for redemption. Moving toward Palm Sunday, the passion week, and Resurrection day, I am impressed how nearly half the content of the Gospels is dedicated to the last couple of weeks of Jesus life. It was that important to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is that important to me.

Without Jesus, hope is illusive, a mere wish for something better than now. No one else did what He did for me. No one loved me this much. No one paid the full penalty of my sin with His own life. No one else promises me His indwelling presence now and a place in Heaven with Him simply because I believe He is the way, the truth and the life.

My hope is built on nothing less 
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. 
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, 
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. 

He is the perfect Lamb of God sacrificed for me, the Mercy Seat of a holy God where I run for forgiveness, compassion, and consolation. He is my Redeemer and my present Helper. This is my living hope.

Snow is still piled on the deck though the sunshine is melting it with a warmth that hints of spring. The trees have shaken off the heaviness of their winter burden and bear buds ready to burst forth. Daffodils and forsythia are recovering beautifully.

Spring is coming and hope is alive in me.

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The season of new life

Mar22

Day 26 of 40 days to Resurrection day

Today’s suggestion:

Look for signs of spring, a time of rebirth

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The calendar can tell us when the first day of spring comes, but the earth is on it’s own schedule.  I know it is spring when I begin to hear the birds singing in the predawn light.  I see two Canadian geese paired up and making themselves at home in the lake across the road.  They will be building a nest together soon and starting a family.  The daffodils in front of our house are budding and opening into gold.  There are buds on the forsythia bushes and the Bradford pear tree.

No matter the temperatures, nature knows it’s springtime and gets busy doing what she knows to do.

Passover occurs in spring, in the month of Nissan.  This month actually begins the Hebrew religious calendar.  God instructed Moses that this month was to be the beginning of a new year for Israel to commemorate their new lives as they left the bonds of Egypt.

And isn’t springtime really more like the beginning of the year, the time when things come to life after long months of dormancy?  As winter hangs on it has the look of lifelessness.  But spring promises hope every year.

Spring is the time we plant vegetable gardens and start new outdoor projects.  The days become longer and we have more energy.  Life is reborn in so many ways.

So wherever you are, even if you are chilled to the bone, step outside and look for those signs that spring is really here and will soon be dressed in all her God-given glory.  While you are out there in nature, look up at the vast sky and remember the Creator who has given it all to us to enjoy.  Thank Him for the beauty of a season of new beginnings that reflects the newness of your life in Christ.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.

Sunday Grace

Revised and re-posted from March 2014