Redemption and Spring

"Awake thou wintry earth—
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!"
-Thomas Blackburn

Spring is an overflow. It's like the earth is having its morning stretch and yawning on the way to the kitchen to cook me pancakes. The smell makes its way to my room and makes me smile as I have my first coherent thoughts. Spring has its' smells that seem to wake me up from my winter sleep and my imagination is once more enlivened as I am surrounded by wonder. Wonder comes upon me when something beautiful happens that I can't explain; something beautiful like the flowers blooming, the wind blowing through new leaves for the first time, and the way the Spring sunlight makes your skin shiver; beautiful things that are reflections of resurrection and the melting of the winter that clings to us. These reflections fill me with wonder.

Spring always makes me think of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and how there are all these whisperings of Aslan's return accompanied by melting snow and a warm wind. It's such a beautiful reflection of how there are whisperings all around us of Jesus' return when the spell of sin will be broken and Spring will come for us.

I also think of the verse in Nichole Nordeman's "Every Season",

"And everything that’s new has bravely surfaced
Teaching us to breathe
What was frozen through is newly purposed
Turning all things green
So it is with You
And how You make me new
With every season’s change
And so it will be
As You are re-creating me
Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring."

All of the seasons speak to us of the Lord's love in different ways and He uses them to recreate us. I love how in Spring, the beautiful inheritance that Jesus paid for with His suffering on the cross, is seen and felt in tangible ways all around us. In a small way we can see the fulfillment of the suffering we go through and how the Lord redeems it to make something more beautiful than we could have ever imagined. And to think these things are just whisperings of His return. It's all very beautiful to think of...

"You should see the sun in Spring
Coming out after a rain
Suddenly, all is green
Sunshine on everything..."
-from "Stars" by David Crowder Band