Sunday Afternoon Tea - Ready for a new season

Spring is late this year.  We just seem to enjoy a day of warmth and sunshine when cool rains move back in... and sometimes even snow!  However, it is beginning to change.  Lawns are greener, smaller trees are showing their leaves, and flowering bushes are beginning to bloom.  It won't be long before the tall trees in the forest show us their new growth.

About a week ago, I drove through town on one of my favorite tree lined streets. It often provides a first glimpse of the season we are entering. The leaves were almost full and the decorative trees and bushes were showing beautiful glimpses of color.  It was as if I drove a few miles and entered True Spring. It wasn't that green in the country at the time.

This sudden glimpse of a world full of chartreuse and violet hues filled my soul with delight after a very long and dark season.  It has seemed like it was Narnia and it was always Winter... but not the beautiful snow filled Winters... more of a cold, muddy, mess of a season that did not want to give up its' last grasp on nature.

I need the sunlight.  I need the warm temperatures.  I need to see color again besides the neighbor's red barn.  It seems when we are used to four distinct seasons and one holds on longer than it was invited... we loooonnng for what the next season brings.  Especially if the current one involves cold rain and mud.

While there is something wonderful about each season, it is Spring that speaks to me of hope and faith and the knowledge that God's Word is true and Heaven awaits.  The vibrant pastels of the season are gentle on the eyes after the blacks and whites and greys of the past season.  It is as if He not only knows we need new Life... we need to gently awake our senses to that new season.

There is something else each new season teaches me and that is this... we are living at the time when God designed us to live.  Snowmen are not built in July and we do not fill pools in January, at least in Northern climates.  Each season has expectations that may not work in another.

I don't know about you but sometimes I get so sad about where the world is going.  I feel as if I don't belong here, anymore  We notice changes even in network television shows and what is deemed acceptable that once was a subject of whispers.  There is even contempt for Christian values on national news programs.  Who would have ever thought it would happen?

We live in an era where the changes in society are coming at us faster than we can often comprehend.  It is as if we were living in a storm watch and overnight entered into a warning for hurricane force winds battering our beliefs. I know the changes have been happening for decades but it seems as if they intensified in the last year or two.

However... and this is a very important thing to remember.... we were born for this generation.  We must never think that we don't belong here.  God has us where we can most have an affect for Him in our families and in our culture.  He doesn't want us to long for the age of black and white television when life was far more simple.  It was and it... wasn't.  Memory has a way of playing tricks on us.

No, my friend... just as we are entering Spring here and Autumn south of the equator... just as He is in charge of the earth orbiting the sun and the moon orbiting the earth and the change of natural seasons... He still holds the universe together and he still holds us together.

We can trust Him in this season of cultural changes just as we trust Him that the cold days will turn warm and the flowers will bloom and the robins will be found in our yard on an April morning... and it will not always be Winter and never Christmas.

In a way, living in these days is exciting even if there are times I prefer the same old-same old.  I heard a pastor say recently that we are living in Biblical times.  No longer is it just church on Sunday.  If we are to hold fast our walk with Christ, then we must purposely walk with Him.  We have to read His Word.  We need our Christian friends.  We need to talk to Him and we need to... listen.

The above photo is of a corner of my desk and sometimes I find myself getting quiet and staring at the little spider plant or my Bible when it is beside me.  I look at the wall that has gifts from friends and photos of family.  I'm thankful there was a day I decided to hang my collection of pearls and other necklaces over the desk.  They make me smile.  No... none of them are real but they are pretty.

I think I need to ponder again about choosing Beauty in the midst of darkness.  It is a theme I keep returning to over the days and months and years.  The Beauty I keep within my sight in the Study has a way of lifting my soul when it is weary.  Just like True Spring.

I would love to talk to the Trinity someday and ask what it was like to decide Spring would follow the bleak winter months.  If it provides a glimpse to us mere mortals of the nature of God... He is quite Lovely and Creative and Loving.  It is something to ponder.