Monday, April 29, 2013

Spring is Here (Part 2)

The snow has melted, and the earth lies cold and bare.  Birds hop excitedly on the newly thawed earth, and their melody, a new song, is carried through the breeze.  The bravest stems slowly venture through the leaves on the ground, and met with the warmth of the sun, begin to open their leaves.  The trees begin to form buds, and the whole earth awakens from it's long slumber.  The death of winter is forgotten, and all things are made new.


Spring is here.



The transition between winter and spring is a moment of awakening.  Rubbing your eyes, you sit up and survey your surroundings.  As the blurry world comes into focus, you are painfully aware of how different the scenery has become.  You see the life that has died, and briefly panic at what's been lost.  You wonder if things will ever be the same, and curse yourself for not being able to stop the winter from coming.   As the sun shines down, though, revealing the colors of spring, it also brings new clarity to what has happened.

There have been times when I would look back at the person I was before my season of depression and feel a sense of loss.  I had even gotten into the habit of telling my husband "if you could only see me then, I was such a better person".  But as this new season of spring begins to lighten my heart, and new buds begin to blossom in me, I see that it wasn't the best of me that died in that season.  It wasn't the joy, and it wasn't the peace that died.  Nor the patience, nor the kindness.  It couldn't be any of these things that died, because these were not fruits of myself, born of seeds that I planted in my own life.   These are fruits that have an endless supply from the outpouring of God's Spirit. 

Neither was it my salvation that died.  As the tree remains grounded with it's roots running deep, untouched by the winter, so my foundation built on Christ alone continues to stands firm.

As I start to take inventory of my mind and spirit, I realize that all that has been lost is any hope that I had in myself.  Any ability I had to feed my own spirit, any confidence in myself and in my accomplishments, has died and fluttered to the ground like leaves that feed a tree.  All that remained in the dead of winter, all that I had to stand on was my foundation in Christ, and His word stored in my heart.

And I realize this is what God intended winter to do.  To kill the facade.

In the very first stages of Spring, new life slowly emerges in us, and we step cautiously just in case winter decides to return.  The longer we are exposed to the warmth of the sun, however, the more comfortable we become.  As we forget the darkness, we begin to freely bloom and blossom in the light.  One morning we wake up, and the entire Earth is covered in green, brushed with flowers of  brilliant colors. 

As we begin to notice how beautiful we have become, adorned in fruits of the Spirit, we can quickly become arrogant.  We start to believe that somehow it was our own cultivation that created this life.  We fool ourselves into thinking that the sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit is actually emanating from within ourselves.  We assure ourselves that we are not being prideful, saying things like "I am confident in who I am in Christ", and "I am wonderfully and beautifully made".  Peeking into the neighbor's garden, uncultivated and covered in weeds and dead brush, we turn our noses up and secretly commend ourselves for being stronger than that, strong enough to survive the winter.  On the outside, we give God the credit, but deep on the inside we start to believe in our own strength.  We hardly notice as the thorns of pride and the weeds of self-assurance start to entangle themselves in our lives. 

Winter becomes a distant memory, and we start to forget how desperately we cried in the darkness, when the freezing cold paralyzed us.  We forget the Name that we so humbly pleaded for when we awoke in a devastated garden.  We forget the Gardener who answered our call and rushed over to pull the weeds and clear the brush, the Sun who fed and nourished our starving hearts, and the Water who satisfied our dry and thirsty lips. 

Without winter, we would have no reason to rejoice in the spring.  But without the Gardener, spring only brings a garden suffocating in the remnants of death devastation from winter.  As we mature, we begin to recognize the piercing of thorns and the suffocation of weeds, and we call the Gardener to pull them immediately.  Eventually, springtime becomes longer, and winter seldom comes.   

Winter is necessary, but Springtime is beautiful

New leaves are beginning to open up in me, and everyday I find a newly formed bud, waiting to blossom.  I breathe in deeply the sweet, familiar fragrance of the Holy Spirit, and I could stand in the warmth of the sun for days.  I am being made new for the seasons to come.  I am not the same person I was before, but I am walking closer to the same God who was, and is, and is to come. 





No comments: