The Persistence of Spring

The last two days have been absolutely beautiful around here. Yesterday we were close to 70 degrees. I am not quite sure if we made it there or not; but it was wonderful. The sun was bright and shining, the winds blew gently (for Iowa) and the mud on the yard and the road was actually drying.

During the last weeks, I have noticed that the tulips I planted in a pot were starting to come up. One even decided to bloom!  I was rather amazed they actually grew. My mom gave the bulbs to me last fall and I never got them in the ground due to being ill.

I decided to try them in a pot. I had planned to put the pot in the garage so they would be cold but I never did as I was afraid they would freeze…..so that pot just sat in the back hallway biding it’s time. I felt rather like a mother hen watching over that pot as the bulbs started sending up shoots.

I also had Gerber daisies in pots in the house this past winter. My husband took them upstairs last fall and placed them by a south window so I could attempt to keep them alive for this coming summer. If it had not been for my husband constantly reminding me to water them…..those daisies would have been long dead.

Yesterday he went upstairs and hauled them back down for me and put them on the deck. There was something so satisfying about working on those pots. I spent time trimming away the dead crunchy leaves, picking out the dead bugs that seemed to have accumulated through the winter and watering what was left.

I love the fact that under all the dead stuff were brand new fuzzy little leaves just starting to unfurl. It was amazing to me how much life there seemed to be and how ready those plants were to spring back to life. They really are very persistant.

Maybe that is what I love about Spring.  It is persistant. It always comes no matter how long or how hard the Winter has been. Spring is life….spring is the hope of abundance…spring is a promise.

Our lives are much like the seasons. We spend time in winter where it is dark, long, cold and just plain hard.  And then comes Spring in all it’s glory. You hardly dare believe it has actually arrived. If you are like me you are encouraged by the signs of life that Spring brings to the world around us and into our lives.

May today find you overjoyed to be in that Spring of life. May signs of new life be evident around you. May you inhale the fragrance of the promise that is Spring.

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
– Martin Luther