Spring, at Last!
Did you notice it this past week? The grass in the medians is turning green! Really! After our long winter, with the fourth snowiest winter on record (71", I have heard: a lot for the Lower Peninsula!), it seemed hard to imagine that life would return to our area. The freak snowstorm last Sunday added to those speculations!
Maple bud casings are being pushed off the trees, and our paved surfaces below them are looking "dusty." Old oak leaves are also being pushed off, blowing away in the cool spring breezes, as new life begins to sprout from the seemingly dead branches. Our landscape bushes are pushing out green buds to meet the spring sunshine.
Ducks are now sitting and paddling in the shallow pond that was once my skating rink in February. Families of robins begin their pre-dawn choral concert at 5 AM outside my windows. (It's acapella, by the way!)
Life is everywhere, making its glorious presence known, in such an abundance and variety! Spring is such a positive time of the year!
As beautiful as this life is and can be, its Creator has built and made something even more beautiful and satisfying to the human soul. It's a place called Heaven, and, as we sing,
"it's made for the pure and the free. How beautiful Heaven must be."
Life is beautiful here on Earth, but it is also frustrating. Our dreams cannot be realized, even over time. We are eternal beings, but our environment is not. Death to a physical being is looked upon as a burden that frustrates one's dreams (Heb. 2:15). As spiritual beings trapped in a temporary body, we groan to live forever (II Cor. 5:3-4). God has planted eternity in each of our hearts (Ecc. 3:11). Do you feel it?
We sing another song, whose lyrics describe the frustrating side of earthly life.
"Beyond this land of parting, losing, leaving, losses, taking, bereaving . [and that's just verse one!] .lies the summer land of bliss."
A loud voice in Heaven proclaimed, "And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." (Rev. 21:4)
The Heavenly Father, Who cannot lie, said, "I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5) Jesus has even made mansions for us (Jn. 14:2).
It is by faith that we see it, as surely as it is by faith that we, surveying a barren winter scene, buried in blankets of snow, will see life.
The exuberance of spring sets the stage for the thrill of Heaven!
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