April 17, 2006

Today I walked around the garden where my mother lived for nearly 20 years and where my brother Charlie still resides. It is Spring and everything is springing to life! I remember the joy my mother had in each new blossom as it appeared. She would phone me to announce, "The crocus is up!" When I arrived she would exclaim, "Yesterday there was nothing but dirt here- today, a purple crocus!"
There is something about a glorious spring day- it puts a song in your heart! Today I was singing Psalm 118. "This is the day that the Lord has made! We will rejoice and be glad in it!"
I found myself marvelling as my mother did every spring, that out of dead twigs and brown dirt God brought life and beauty and color. Even more wonderfully, God gives life to us when we are, as scripture says, "dead in our sins." Not only does he give us life, but purpose and so much good that we should find it easy to rejoice and be glad every day of our lives.
"I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord."