Something is stirring that I can’t see. The days are still mostly gray. The wind that seems to howl through the pines still darken the spirit after the long weeks of winter. Sometimes the cold rain freezes to sleet and then changes to snow flurries still into March.
But something is stirring in the depths. I can feel it, this stirring at the core of things, as if the solid ice deep in the dirt is loosening its hold, and the roots of trees are stretching and yawning like a baby awakening from a nap, reaching tiny fingers out to grasp something yet unseen.
Deep below the frozen creek the springs are becoming insistent to urge their way upward. Fall leaves, frozen to the underside of the ice, are peeling loose to move downstream below the glassy surface.
And something is stirring inside of me. My spirit is restless to break through the depression of the gray winter and the pessimism of the times to something new, a hope that will not be denied.
Hope will rise! It always does, because hope is not always “whispering”. It is also persistent, insistent and powerful. It is as tough as nails in the face of setbacks. Something there is that will not accept defeat. Under the ice of discouragement, the push of the current of hope flows to the sea of God’s grace. Deep below the frozen surface of pessimism, the living roots of faith are expanding, pushing outward to secure the underpinnings of a growth that, above ground on the dark branches, reaches for the sky in fresh blossoms of certainty.
We are living in perilous times. When has history ever played it safe? We mark history by the crises faced in every decade and all over the world. But it has always been the household of faith that has taken in the world’s lost and broken, the “wretched refuse of its teeming shores”. For those with deep springs of commitment, crisis is simply a call to action.
Yes, the ground is thawing. The green shoots are pushing through to the surface. In spite of everything winter threatened, the trees are budding, and the underground springs are bringing fresh currents to sluggish streams. Life wins! It always does. God promised:
While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat
Summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease.
And Jesus said, “...I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” Yes!
