One of my blueberry bushes awakening to Spring.
The gate of Spring has lavishly swung open and welcomed us into its joyful cadence. I noticed the first clues last week on a walk as everywhere around me, burgeoning buds of green emerged from branches ever so cautiously. Cows arrived in fields, baby goats and sheep lay in pastures of sunshine, and birdsong was heard in bushes and trees as I meandered past. Of course, the familiar dog friends came running out to bark uproariously as we passed by quickly on the other side of the road. At home, I moved my outdoor plants back to their stations, hoping they survived the winter. Day by day, I gave a passing glance at the branches to see if anything was happening, and it was. Marvel reawakened in me as it does every Spring. You’d think after forty-six revolutions of the Earth around the sun, I would not be surprised anymore by the seasons changing, but each turning of the season brings a fresh delight to my soul. I hope that I will never lose that wonder, even when I am eighty years old.
We entered Holy Week at our church this past Sunday, led in worship by the younger members of our congregation, waving palm branches, the older kids guiding and carrying the younger ones during the first hymn. With pure joy, we were led into this most important of weeks in the Christian calendar, led by children and infants to worship the King. It was a fitting start to this week of joyful illuminating hope and celebration of the victory of our King over the sin and death of this dark world.
This month, I’ve gathered some words to share with you, some beautiful words that have watered my soul and nourished my thinking. I hope they bless anyone who is reading today, that these words point you to the Creator, the Savior, the Risen King, Jesus who sits this very day on His throne. May you know Him more deeply today than ever before.
Photo by Blake Verdoorn on Unsplash, Multnomah Falls, Oregon
“Joy being of God was a living thing, a fountain not a cistern, one of those divine things that are possessed only as they overflow and flow away, and not easily come by because it must break into human life through the hard crust of sin and contingency. Joy came now here, now there, was held and escaped.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch
The Good Shepherd, by I. Lilias Trotter
Beneath Thy Cross
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.
Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.
-Christina Rossetti
Photo by Alexander Ramsey on Unsplash
“And Christ’s life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it. When there is no danger, when there is a dead calm, when everything is favorable to our Christianity, then it is all too easy to confuse an admirer with a follower. And this can happen very quietly. The admirer can be under the delusion that the position he takes is the true one, when all he is doing is playing it safe. Give heed, therefore, to the call of discipleship!” - Søren Kierkegaard, Bread and Wine, Readings for Lent and Easter
Blossom in the Desert, I. Lilias Trotter
“Oh, that we may learn to die to all that is of self with this royal joyfulness that swallows up death in victory in God’s world around! He can make every step of the path full of the triumph of gladness that glows in the golden leaves. Glory be to His Name!”
― I. Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross