Life from death. . .

I know, it's my  backyard.  It looks pretty uneventful.  And yet, this morning I looked out the window and had hope.  Can you see it??  It's pretty faint.  You kind of have to squint your eyes a little bit.  It's the smallest amount of green.  The trees are as bare as my daughter's butt right now.  The sky is grey.  There are no flowers.  There is no life.    If you look up the hill a bit, it's not there yet.  And yet, it's here.  The beginnings of grass coming back.  The rain comes down and settles right behind the back door.  It brings life a little earlier than the rest of the yard.  And yet, I am excited from that place deep inside me. 

John and I have a recurring conversation.  I say to him, "I don't think there will be winter when Jesus returns.  Because everything dies.  Death didn't happen in the garden, so it must not be."  My husband (who loves the winter) replies, "It doesn't die."  And yet, every fall and winter it feels such like death.  And when spring comes, it's LIFE again!  It is such a beautiful picture of the resurrection for me, and I love that Easter is in the spring.  It reminds me that life is not all about the here and now.  We are here and now with the expectant hope that renewal is coming.  That Jesus is bringing back with him the renewal of all things.  Even life itself. 

BUT.  I learned something even more fascinating this fall.  I knew it before, but I had never fully connected the dots.  In the winter, when plants are not growing leaves, fruit, or flowers, they are spreading their roots.  They are digging in.  Penetrating deep.  Preparing for the storms of spring and summer. 

I have spent this last winter (merciful as it may have been) trying to grow some roots.  Instead of despising death (which, by the way, I still think is completely despisable) I have set my heart on roots.  I want to grow deep.  I want to see the heart of God in ways that I have not yet.  I want to read his word in ways that I have not before.  I want to withstand the storms.  Big and small.  Near and far.  I want to have deep roots. 

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither." Psalm 1:1-3  

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs-- heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.  I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.   We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved."  Romans 8:17-24 (underline me)