Ahhh, Springtime.  The wildflowers are out in Texas.  Bluebonnets. Black-eyed Susans.  Indian Blanket. Crimson Clover. Indian Paintbrush.  Primrose. Skullcap. Bitterweed. Winecup.

In a brilliant stroke of the majesty of God, the canvas of vivid colors peppers the highways throughout Texas.  As I have traveled the last few weeks, I have savored the beauty of Spring blooms.  Journeys to different regions - Hill Country, North Texas, East Texas, Coastal Texas - have offered up eye candy around every twist and turn in the road.

It's a shame the beauty is so fleeting.  So much has to occur throughout the previous year to enable the blooms to happen: the conditions have to be just right; fertile soil; sufficient rain at gestationally important times; proper climate.  If any one need isn't met, we'll end up with a sorry flower season.  But when everything comes together as it should, we have such breathtaking color and variety.  We wonder how we went the entire year looking at the drab.  And then, in a moment, the flowers are gone and the mowers are out.  It's time to start over again.

Really, I guess we're no different than the flowers.  We're simply members of God's living creation, and I suppose we go through seasons, too, spiritually speaking.  Our Master Creator is constantly working on us... behind the scenes, underground, year round.  We gain our nourishment in communion with Christ.  We are watered by the Living Water through baptism in Christ.  But no matter how much God provides for us in the gestation of our becoming, still we must own up to our own responsibilities in the transformation. 

We must provide fertile soil and proper climate.  Are we sincerely open to God's plantings in our lives?  Are we filled with temperate love for ourselves and one another, or do we harbor the extreme iciness of hate or stifling heat of self-loathing?  Only when we receive and hear God's Word, and when we carry forth God's commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves (which is, of course a commandment that, first, we love ourselves, and second, that we love others as we love ourselves), will we find we are able to bloom.  In our full array, we wear our colors of our individuality in God, while projecting to the world the wonder and love and benevolence of the Heavenly Gardener.

And, so that we may be continually renewed in Christ, so that we may always grow deeper in our faith and understanding of our Father, we find ourselves at times, being mowed and mulched.  Even in the trying times of our lives, the drab times, the colorless and seemingly lifeless times, God is there, working behind the scenes, and underground, and within, providing us with all that we need to weather the storms and bloom again.

Grace and peace to you as you journey.

Yours in Christ,  

~~Jennifer

4/13/05

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