The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Spring is in the air.    And I love it.   I know we'll get a couple more cold days, but I know that it's almost here.   I love being able to be outside and enjoy the sun shining down on me.   I find new ways to enjoy the outdoors, whether it's going to different parks, or sitting outside when I eat, or just working in the yard.    I was so excited the other day when I saw the first blossoms on the Bradford Pear trees lining the road that we travel daily.    It's always a sign that the seasons are changing.

All winter long, I wait patiently for the Spring.   It's like how I used to wait for Christmas once it was Fall.   (Or really, how I still do.)     I try to convince myself that other seasons are my favorite, but there is something different about the Spring.    I even found myself singing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" the other day.   But skipping over the Christmas lyrics, and just keeping to that phrase.   I could say that it's the warm weather, or the budding flowers, or the birds singing more freely.   But what I truly believe it is, is the new life that it brings.    Or should I say, that He brings.

I walked by our dogwood tree the other day, and for many seasons, I have thought that it was about to die.   I love dogwoods, and we only have this little one in our yard.    And, it seriously is pretty skimpy, and I always think, this is it's last leg.   But somehow, it comes back to life every spring.   Even though it seems to have almost no life left in it, there are the tiniest of buds beginning to show forth.   It reminds me that I , too, have an entirely new life.   

Therefore, through baptism we were buried with him into his death so that, just as the Messiah was raised from the dead by the Father's glory, we too may live an entirely new life. (Rom. 6:4)

That because I was buried with him, when he chose to die for me, that I, too, have been given the same new life that Christ received.   He was raised by the Father's glory, and that is no small thing.   I am so thankful that the Lord not only teaches us with stories and parables that we can understand from daily life, but that He displays His glory throughout everything that we see.

I am anticipating Easter, with the hope of this new life.   And my prayer is that no matter how long I am a believer, that this new life that He offers me, would never become old to me.   That I would see His mercies new for me every morning, and know that I need His new life just as much this season, as I did the last.