Welcome to Spring!

 Ever since the first daffodil bloomed out in the gardens, my sisters have been on a mission...

to fill the house with SPRING!!

Hyacinth of a shade of purple simply impossible to photograph!

With a scent I can only communicate by mailing you the flower itself.

Oh, for scratch and sniff screens!!

 Double "ruffle" daffodils.

Carrie picked out my garden this morning...and by the afternoon it was full again of new blooms!

Amazin'.

 And this, Kate informed me, is a

"Welcome to Spring Bouquet".

And so 'tis.

 Ahhh...can't get over how creative our Creator was...and is! 

And as my brother Sam often reminds me--these are the flowers that grow in a fallen world. Can you imagine what Eden must have looked like? Or what flowers must grow in "Aslan's country"?

We can never out-imagine God. Even the most marvelous things we could think up or invent don't  touch what God does on a daily basis...creation of new LIFE. 

Daily He causes new flowers to bloom,

acorns to germinate,

a new human soul to be knit in secret places...

 and these are just the edges of His ways!

Yet He also does a most wonderful and inexplicable thing.

Flowers die and return to dust.

Oak trees grow, age, fall, and return to dust.

Human beings pass away, their bodies returning to dust.

BUT...

He can take something--someone--who is spiritually lifeless, 

who has been completely cut off, by sin, from his Source of spiritual food and drink; and who, being dead in sin, is without hope of saving himself from the well-deserved wrath of God...

 and breathe His very own eternal Spirit of LIFE into him.

How?

I have no clue.

Why?

I can't tell you.

I mean, He doesn't need us.

The Creator could have created something else to take the place of the sinful creatures that we are!

But instead, He chose...

He chose to redeem out of this world children and worshippers for Himself...through the death of His perfect and precious Son, Jesus.

He chose to bear the sin of man upon Himself on the cross.

LIFE died for the one who was DEAD...

in order that His LIFE might be given,

so that the DEAD might LIVE again, never to die.

Bodies to turn to dust, but with the hope of resurrection!

And souls redeemed to live forever with their Savior.

Oughtn't this new Life within us cause us to live differently from who we were before? 

Does "the love of Christ [control you]?" (2 Cor. 5:14)'

Are you bearing the fruit of the Spirit of Life in

"Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control." (Gal. 5:22)?

Are you beginning to look like, talk like, love like Jesus?

It's not like it's something you can create yourself.

We're the creature, not the Creator of this marvelous work of Life!

I reckon all we can do is about as much as the flowers in our gardens:

trust our wise Gardener,

stretch our roots down and our faces up to receive nourishment,

submit joyfully to pruning,

carry out the purposes God has for us,

and grow upward.

After the death of fall and the barrenness of winter--

Welcome to Spring!!

"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

(Romans 6:22-23)