Samuel
My daughter Hannah took this picture of my Samuel. I love, love, love it. I'm hoping to have it blown up and put on a canvas type frame. Sigh. She's got many more pictures on her photography blog 2010 in 2010 and this picture she entered in a contest. She wrote about it on her blog Aspire.I love spring. Well, mostly. If it wasn't for my terrible allergies I could safely state that spring would be my favorite season. Despite those pesky allergies, there is something rewarding about seeing green growth come from what seemed to be dead earth. It amazes me how this plant, buried under piles of snow, sitting in freezing temperatures unthaws to come alive again. I never grow tired of wandering around my perennial gardens looking for signs of life. And today? Oh my, oh my, my beautiful crocuses emerged. Some years these hardy flowers peek through remnants of snow. This morning I wandered over to be greeted by this:
new life
What an amazing God we serve. We were dead in sin without Him. His sacrifice, His giving of His life allows us to emerge...beautiful. It's so easy to forget the power of the Lord at work in our hearts and lives. We tend to get so busy with the world's concerns that our hearts slow die.to the beauty of Christ in our lives. We plod around our day, trudging from menial task to task and losing sight of the big picture.He's alive! Without Him we would be no better than dead earth. But with Him we are free to grow, to love, to live. And to find joy.
Spring is about reminders of new life. Everywhere I look green and color are returning. It's a beautiful reminder of how our lives parallel the seasons. I've had those times of winter. Times when everything is bleak, and hard, and where the everyday seems enormous. And I've had those times of fall. Times when I need to reign in activities, to refocus, and remember. Or summer. Times that are carefree, full of family, and moments of rest. But spring? Ahhhh, spring. Springtime is a new start. New energy for life.
The most surprising moment of my daily "check out my gardens" walk is a post of chives given to me by my father last year. He gave them to me late in the summer. By that time I was quite tired, being seven months pregnant, and I never got around to planting them in my garden. So I left them sitting in the planting pot. Untouched. The summer came and went. Fall, then winter. And now spring. I looked at them a couple of days ago thinking that I might as well just dump the dirt into my garden. I thought they were dead. And then today....on my walk...alive.
