This month I took advantage of a break in the cold weather and put my backyard “to bed” for the winter. This involved bringing in the lawn chairs and the hose, placing collars around the rose bushes, dumping the pots of expired tomato plants into the compost bin, and hanging the wind chime in the garage. Everything looks pretty quiet and dormant now.
Except for the forsythia bush I planted last spring! I looked at the brown, leafless twigs and saw a bazillion little buds that will be next spring’s earliest blossoms. I felt a rush of gladness. Real winter is just ahead, but can spring be far behind? It will certainly come, for those little buds are the promise of renewed life.
We usually think of spring as the time of fresh beginning, of renewal and resurrected life. We associate fall with harvest at the end of the growing season, and winter with nature in a slow, sleepy state or even death. Unfortunately, we liken our lives to these seasons too, thinking that youth is full of life and promise and hope, while the mature years are simply for winding up things and waiting for the end.
It is not the springtime that speaks to me of hope, as lovely as that season is. Hope is not in the bursting forth of new green leaves and blossoms. That is not hope but sight! Hope is in the little gray buds on a bare branch when there is nothing to be seen of what will one day be.
Go into this New Year with hope! The Apostle Paul prayed with assurance, “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13) If you are discouraged by what you see or distressed by what you think might come in the days ahead, remember that the God of hope will not fail you! Don’t say, “Well, 2008 was a bust; 2009 probably won’t be any different.” Don’t worry about the months in the past that perhaps were not well spent. In other words, don’t spend your time looking at the “bare branches” in your life. Look at the little buds of new life that promise there will be fruitfulness in your future!
MaryMartha
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Scripture quotation is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.
Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
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