Dogwoods                                                                                                            March 29, 2013

One of my favorite springtime scenes are crisp white Dogwood blossoms gracing the dark outline of a leafless tree against a pure blue morning sky.  In Tallahassee, Florida where I live, this picture is repeated dozens of times each day as we drive city streets and neighborhoods, turning a corner and being blessed by a deliciously full, white cloud of pink-edged blossoms.

But this spring the Dogwoods didn’t bloom as usual.  Our own tree at the side of the street had only a few dozen pale blooms before the leaves grew in and took over.  I noticed that all through town other Dogwoods were similarly sparse in flowers, and wondered at this unusual turn of events.  “What happened?” I asked myself each time I saw a blossomless tree.

I’ve read that plants are affected by unseen changes—perhaps the winter was too long, or too short.  Perhaps a late spring freeze damaged fragile buds, or the season was too wet or too dry.  There are multiple variables at play, out of sight but surely seen in sometimes disappointing results like the Dogwoods.

The unseen spiritual world is also always at work, both holy and evil forces.  Last week I was keenly depressed one day by a factor at my workplace that continually seeks to destroy my spirit of optimism and hope.  I decided that I needed a change, either in the work that I do or the place where I work… not sure.  It was a question I’d been mulling over for some time, and I couldn’t figure out the wise thing to do.  All I knew was that I needed a new perspective, a fresh focus.

I removed myself from the situation by getting in my car, driving to a sunny spot (it was cold outside) and taking out my Bible.  God’s Word never fails to sustain me and to improve my attitude!  The scripture set aside for the day (in preparation for the Passover celebration) was Exodus 12, verses 1 thru 14.

In the New Living Translation, verses 1 and 2 read: “While the Israelites were still in the land of Egypt, the Lord gave the following instructions to Moses and Aaron: From now on, this month will be the first month of the year for you.”

Really?!  “From now on, this month will be the first month of the year for you.”  In my spirit I was stunned.  I knew I needed something new, a fresh beginning, and here was God’s Word—the Spirit Himself—confirming it to me.  It was just what I needed to hear, and I was calmed and filled with peace.

There are those among you who will cry, “How ridiculous!  It’s just a coincidence… that isn’t really “God talking” to you!”  I know you’ll say this, because I’ve heard it many times over the years.  “It’s a coincidence… you’re making more out of it than is real… God certainly doesn’t have time to pay that much individual attention to you.”

But for those of you who aren’t sure, who may be on the edge of believing that God does indeed have the time and the will (love) to pay individual and specific attention to you, I encourage you to have faith.  After all, faith believes in something that cannot be seen.

Just as Dogwood blossoms can be affected by unseen forces… just as my attitude was affected by an unseen force… just as truly does the unseen force of the Holy Spirit watch over you and prepare the way for you, even as simply as preparing for you to read the exact scripture you need at the moment.  How like a faithful God!

In this holy season of Easter, let yourself believe in miracles!  God prepared the Way of rescue two thousand years ago just as He prepares it today—let His Spirit draw you in to the very real unseen but surely felt embrace of His love.  You will experience new life and a joyous peace :o)

North in the Garden                                                                               March 23, 2013

I recently returned from the part of the Garden called Vermont.  When I arrived there the views were breathtaking after a good snow had covered everything in its pure white.  Birches and pines, fence tops, shingled rooftops and ice-laden ponds were stunning in the brief but bright winter sunlight.  It was Vermont in all its postcard splendor.

By the time I left, however, the snows were melting under warmer temperatures and almost spring rains.  The land was slowly being released from its winter stronghold.  Roads began to ever so carefully ooze muddy before another hard freeze recaptured them in ruts and solid ice—the back-and-forth of winter and spring’s annual tussle for the earth.

In between freezes we explored the outdoor world, examining shrubs and trees for signs of new life, finding buds that swelled with the promise of spring.  Is there any difference between “hope springs eternal” and spring eternally hoping?  Fresh air laced with crisp melting snow, the hint of spring rains to come and a faint trace of early flowers ready to splash the world with crocus-tulip-daffodil color.  All my thoughts turned to my Florida garden and the planting delights soon to come…

Whoever planned for Easter to take place in the spring surely knew what they were doing.  New life, victory over winter’s death and bright spring growth call forth all that was hidden away in the tomb—so much to live for!

“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.  Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.  The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.  Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.”  

(Psalm 85:10-13, from the New International Version of the Bible)

The Psalmist must have written this in the springtime!  Let us rejoice in the days to come, that we have been given a fresh new chance because our Lord lives again!

Late Winter                                                                                                  March 1, 2013

It is the season of Lent in the Garden, and we prepare our spirits to receive revelation about how we have been rescued from ourselves—how we have been brought into an amazing everlasting relationship with an amazing everlasting God.

I recall a moment in time years ago when I was a young believer—desperate to know why two marriages had resulted in divorce, why I felt so alone even though I knew that God loved me, why I couldn’t seem to get things right in my life.

I was meeting regularly with a man who promoted himself as a Christian counselor.  Over time he encouraged me to find strength and truth in God’s Word, and to look for God’s Spirit in myself.  All well and good.

But the conversation slowly, carefully, took a tiny turn toward something that I soon found to be insidious and threatening.  (I know now that the Holy Spirit was giving me discernment to understand this, and to see the danger in where we were headed.)

The counselor—good man that he was—was deceived, and was being used to deceive me.  As we dug deeper into “me in God, God in me,” his words began to say “you and God are the same” and then “you are God.”  I was at once both fascinated and repelled.  I was a 20^th century Eve.

Now, decades later, I remember this as I meditate upon the craftiness of Satan (the enemy in the Garden) to take a measure of truth and insert into it a measure of lie.

The truth is this: the one true triune God does indeed abide in me (John 14:23) and I have chosen (as much as a fallen soul can) to abide in Him (John 15:4-8.)  But I am not the same as God, and I am not a god.  My God is singularly holy, all powerful, all knowing and ever present in all places and at all times.  He is the Creator of all life.

While I have been rescued from myself—my errant (call it sinful) ways, my inclination to be unholy (call it iniquity or transgression), my mortal earthly death—this rescuing does not make me equal to the God Who created and rescued me.  While God’s Word tells us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48), to be holy (Ephesians 1:4), to understand that we have been made new (2 Corinthians 5:17), God does not say that in this earthly life we ARE perfect, or that we ARE as holy as He is.

We are always pursuing this goal (1 Corinthians 9:24.)  By the grace of God we have been set on a course, a heavenly and perfect plan marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1) that as we work to follow it, leads us ever closer into Him.  We find ourselves ever deeper into the things of His heart, into the revelation of His truth, and into the satisfaction of His embrace.  His Spirit swells within us as we expand within Him.

This is a Garden place not of rift or expulsion as Eve and Adam experienced when they bought the lie, but a Garden place of peace, belonging and fulfilling light.  We can rest in the beauty of His presence; we can find strength in the revelation of His faithfulness.  We are surrounded by His grace and His love.  There is no better Lenten truth.

February                                                                                                       2/23/2013

A couple of months ago my lovely husband spent an hour blowing leaves—hickory and oak, sweet gum and elm—into a large pile near the gazebo in our back yard.  I thanked him, and of course reminded him that the leaves would have to be bagged up soon or the minimal grass under the pile would suffer and die… Something about my husband (whom I adore): he loves to use his loud noisy leaf blower, but disdains the gathering of the collected leaves into a bag.  (He tells me that any man reading this will completely agree with this practice.)

So here I am at the end of February raking the now sodden pile of leaves and lifting them into the bag-lined trashcan so they can be put out with the garbage.  Here in Tallahassee we have many, many trees (one of the things we love most about the place) and far more leaves than we can ever use for mulch or bedding.  (Not everything likes the acidic nature of disintegrating leaves…)

The pile of leaves I’m working with this morning are compressed-- black, wet and cold-- and are mixed in with an incredible number of hickory nuts after our profuse harvest was brought down by winter winds.  As I scoop up double handfuls of leaves, sticks and nuts I see evidence of the various things that have been happening under the pile over the past few months.

Creepy crawlies scurry from the movement, looking for a quick new hideaway, and long healthy earthworms squiggle frantically as they drop onto the hard clay underneath my feet.  The grass that’s been covered by the pile has turned a pretty lemon yellow, but appears to be alive and welcoming the fresh air and sunlight.

I see tender white shoots emerging from thick hard hickory nut shells, something they would not have been able to do without the heavy leaf cover serving to soften the outer layer of the nut.  The earthworms were working hard to merge the leaf detritus with the clay soil—a very good thing.  Odd little holes appear in the dirt as I clear the leaves; God only knows what’s in them.

As I stuff the leaves into more than a dozen big yard trash bags, I ponder these revelations.  So much life happening around us of which we are not conscious!  So many levels of existence that don’t typically penetrate our daily thoughts—just like the unseen spiritual world that thrives right beside (and in) us at all times.  We move through our lives often without giving this shadow world credence or value, and yet it is the essence of life and death.

How much more will be revealed to us when we face our Creator—the Supreme Gardener and Tender of our Growth in His vine!  One of my favorite passages of scripture tells us: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”  (1 Corinthians 13:12)

We shall know fully!  Things which we cannot possibly know now; things which might even hurt us to know, things that we couldn’t handle knowing now… when we are with Him we will be completely healed in body, mind and spirit, and we will be able to learn these things without pain or suffering.  We will finally understand the world around us—including other people—and we will be amazed beyond be-leaf :o)