Spring is Coming

My favorite season of the year is spring. This is partly due to the fact that Winter is my least favorite season of the year. I hate the cold weather, the shorter days, and the lack of all things green. So when groundhog day arrives and we get our first hint of warmer weather, I am more than ready to move on to better days. I love the feeling of the coming heat, the longer days, the brighter sun, the spring showers, the greener grass and beautiful flowers.

I guess what I really love most though is the anticipation of it all. I love the first feeling you get before spring is even there. I'm sure you know what I mean. there is this feeling you get. Its very subtle, almost as if you are trying to remember something but it is just out of reach. It's a certain smell, or the way the evening sunlight shines a certain way, or the first flower you see. Something catches your attention and all of a sudden your heart flutters and you get this feeling of anticipation because you know spring is coming, and with spring brings the idea of new birth, life, refreshment, vitality, joy. All these things that are in contrast to the Winter season before (death, sleep, cold, etc.). it's this feeling so great, but it feels as if it is just out of your reach, like you could almost grasp it if you stretched far enough.

I love the hope that spring brings. And I guess that it means something more this year than it has in the past. This winter obviously has been the epitome of what I think
Winters are every year. The cancer that I am wrestling with was only aggravated by the mood of Winter. The cold seemed to seep into my being and sap the life out of me, like a candle barely hanging on to its flame. Now to be honest, it wasn't totally terrible, but the Winter definitely did not make things better. What made things better was the anticipation of Spring. I longed for the days of warmer weather, for the feeling that things in the world were waking up from their slumber.

C.S. Lewis understood this concept well when he wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for in Narnia it was always winter, but never Christmas. But when Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy came into Narnia, they brought in spring. And with spring came the hope. It was a hope that evil didn't have control over this world, but that good would win out. A hope that all was not lost in the world. That there was a Savior coming to deliver them from the evil that was ruling. And that one day, things would be made right. Every time I get a hint of spring, those thoughts and feelings come to mind. As I come to the end, Lord willing, of this journey with cancer, these feelings are accentuated all the more.

But there is one more aspect of spring that ties all of this together. It is resurrection. And it's Christ's resurrection I am talking mostly about. Spring and all that accompanies it, serve as a symbol and reminder of Jesus's resurrection from the dead. Spring says "there is a hope beyond the grave. There is a hope that one day all things will be made right. A hope that sickness, death, and the grave will be no more. A hope that evil in this world will be conquered once and for all. A hope that one day we too will be resurrected, and the world will be made new. No more tears, no more crying, no more pain. and all of this is centered and anchored in Jesus's resurrection." oh what great joy we have in Christ!!!

All of this is what I feel (as best as I can describe it) when I feel that first spring rain, or look at that first spring sunset. It's a feeling that is uncontainable really, yet at the same time barely out of my reach. I feel this tension. I feel like im seeing something unbeleivable through a veil, like im experiencing the most beautiful music with earmuffs on, or like im smelling soe thing incredible with a clothespin on my nose. It's because spring isn't here yet. It's still coming. Jesus isn't here yet. But he's coming. And on that day when he comes back, the feeling that I can't quite grasp here on earth, that feeling that there is still something more out there, will be gone. The veil will be removed, the earmuffs taken off, the clothespin put away, and Spring will be here in its fullest. The joy on that day will be overwhelming. There will be great rejoicing for those that belong to Him.

That gives me strength. It gives me hope. I look at this last chemo treatment next week with little fear and trepidation, because I know that Spring is coming. My heart burns with longing for Spring. Steven Curtis Chapman, in his album Beauty Will Rise finishes with an incredible song that captures what I'm describing here. Appropriately, it entitled Spring is Coming. I've attached a link to the music and lyrics. I hope it encourages you to look forward to the day that Jesus comes back.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bco4kmBHEKQ