Sunday Afternoon Tea

I know I've been Missing in Action around here.  I think there are cobwebs in the HTML code.  While there is no serious illness as it was last year, my doctor was very pleased with my recent three month visit, I have been literally under the weather.

Sinus passages and ears are inflamed enough to require more antihistamine than usual... and it tends to just knock me out. Which isn't a bad thing if your head hurts but not conducive to getting much accomplished.  Other than the usual medicine, I was told what I need is... Spring.  :)

It is at the end of winter that we need to hold on to the hope that is before us, helped by the promise of a February thaw here in the North.  Hope that the mounds of snow will soon melt away to make it possible to drive the cars all the way into the driveway.  Hope that one no longer slips and slides walking to the mailbox.  Just the beginning of letting oneself think of planting seeds and growing and the harvest to come.

We are told in the Book that if we hold on, we will rise up with wings like eagles.  I must admit to not feeling much like an eagle right now but more like a mud covered sparrow which is shivering in the cold.  Even as I look out my kitchen window while washing cups and plates and skillets... I can see the splash of cardinal red against the snow and be thankful of a God who designed color in winter.  Thankful but still very much in need of the warmth of spring robins and the hummingbirds of summer.

There is a reason the Book has so much to say about hanging on and becoming steadfast and not giving up and running the race to the end... for life is not a sprint but a marathon.  A dear friend I've known for years and years so often reminds me, "Pace yourself Bren-friend, miles to go... miles to go".

Being a book-ish type person, my ponderings this past week (while trudging through the realities of a swollen throat and aching ears) have been about Lucy and Mr. Tumnus and not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

I was pondering the day when Mr. Tumnus met Lucy by the lamppost and it has been Winter and Never Christmas for so long that Narnia can hardly remember the celebrations.  Little did the faun know meeting the young girl was the beginning of the end of winter and spring was just around the corner and that Aslan was already on the move.

We must hold fast to the fact that no matter how cold and harsh our days feel in their twenty-four hour cycles... Aslan is and has been on the move and winter has already been conquered.  It is in the journey that we become like the One who has already stated it is finished and in the journey that every good thing we need in this world to run the marathon is gained... not in that moment we cross the finish line and find ourselves at the destination.

So, instead of holding our breath and sprinting to the end... never enjoying the journey in the midst of the harsh climate the realities our days often throw at us... may we take the time to look around and live today within this marathon called a lifetime... holding on to the Author and Finisher of our faith and the One who holds those days in His hands.  No matter what it appears as we look around this world... Aslan is moving.